


You Wanted Me Alone

by likeamadonna



Category: U2 (Band)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, and two beautiful people who love each other even though it's complicated, it's a think piece about a mid-level band, just kidding it's U freaking 2, struggling with their own limitations in the harsh face of stardom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:09:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26745670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeamadonna/pseuds/likeamadonna
Summary: Bono and Edge continue to write fanfiction about themselves (1980-85). This is a sequel to Fictitious Characters, which covered the earliest years of U2. Do you need to read/finish F.C. before you read this one? No, but I wish you would.
Relationships: Bono/Ali Hewson, Bono/The Edge (U2), The Edge/Aislinn O'Sullivan
Comments: 46
Kudos: 29





	1. Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome to my Bono and Edge fic universe!
> 
> After a summer-long break, I am attempting to write this, uh, *book* during a global pandemic. My primary motivation for starting it now: I can't imagine not writing this winter. My boys have been giving me ideas all summer long, and I've enjoyed researching it and coming up with an outline for it. If for any reason I cannot fulfill my duties as author of this story, MissEllaVation will take over. (You will, won't you, MEV? xoxox)
> 
> Okay, so while the bulk of this story will happen in the early 80s, this introductory chapter takes place in August 2011, immediately following U2's 360 tour. We're in Bono and Edge's palatial villa in the south of France, specifically their special bedroom on the top floor. This room is all white and you may remember it from my story called The White Room.
> 
> Spoiler-y issues!
> 
> * I don't know exactly where or how long the scar is and am making it up  
> * I will post the next chapter immediately after I post this one.  
> * If this story is anything like Fictitious Characters, it'll have 30-ish chapters, but I'm just guessing here.
> 
> END OF ISSUES!
> 
> Thanks in advance for reading and (pretty please) commenting. 
> 
> Thanks to my rock MEV for having perfect commenting attendance during the writing of F.C. and encouraging me as I researched this one! I hope you love it.

“Alone at last,” you purred into my ear before burrowing beneath the sheets. I joined you there. A rare August mistral rattled the north windows of the white room, but it only made our soft, pearly tent cozier. The wind had cooled the sea and shooed the tourists away temporarily, along with our families, who didn’t have to ask whether you and I would remain in Eze for another day or two. They already knew. 

“Five continents, one hundred and ten shows, seven million people,” I said languidly.

“One broken back,” you sang à la _five golden rings._ Then you shifted to showcase the vertical, three-inch scar that decorated the base of your spine. You had proudly displayed your red (now barely pink) badge of courage at every opportunity over the past year and change.

“If you were a woman, I’d be tempted to draw wings and antennae on this and turn it into a butterfly.”

“Do it anyway, Edge. I could show it to the girls as a cautionary tale against impulsive lower back tattoos before they leave for school.”

I kissed your scar and the two dimples bracketing it--one with freckle and one sans freckle--then took as much of your body as I could gather into my arms for an awkward, sideways hug. 

We pulled some pillows into our tent and faced each other. The tour’s toll was written across both of our exhausted faces in a network of smile and frown lines, thankfully more of the former than the latter. Some were new, and others were merely deeper. I stroked your hair, which reminded me of dark, feathery flames, and moved down to your burly neck. You had turned over the feeding and care of your body to professionals for the duration of the tour and were still getting used to the idea that you could go downstairs and help yourself to something other than an egg white omelet if you wanted to. 

“So how does it feel to have finally joined me in this godforsaken sixth decade of life?” you asked. 

“It’s like I’ve been climbing a mountain for fifty years, and now I’m at the summit and looking around before I make my way back down to the bottom.”

“That’s assuming you survive the descent. Most people die somewhere along the way.”

I whistled the whistling part of _Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life_ as you chuckled and kissed my chest. 

“This thing,” you groaned. “Tempting me all day. All tour!”

“You don’t care that it’s fifty-fifty salt and pepper now?”

“Eh, more like thirty-seventy. And no. It’s fucking hot. It pushes some kind of button in me that I don’t quite understand.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

You looked down at your torso and scoffed. “Too much white for a pop singer to have. But Ali is fine with it. I’ve thought about, I don’t know, maintaining it in some way, or maybe I could just take it out of the equation entirely, but who has the time for that, and where does one stop, I ask you?”

“On me? I wouldn’t hazard a guess.”

“Ali says it doesn’t matter in the dark. She likes the way it feels.”

“So do I, love.”

“And I like yours.”

“Morleigh likes it, too.”

You raised the sheet and announced, “Everybody likes it!” to the piano and table. Returning to me, you nuzzled my collarbone and murmured, “But I like it the most. Lush. Lush is what you are, Edge.”

I took a deep breath and exhaled. “Isn’t this wonderful?”

“Yes.”

“Alone at last.”

Silence settled over us as I held you--still the love of my life, and still the kind of person with whom I could traverse the planet for two years but would also require extra time with him afterwards. And I loved being with you in our room. There was no substitute for it. The windows rattled again, accompanied by the hiss of windswept sand striking the panes. Your eyes relayed the question I’d come to expect at the end of every tour. 

“What do we do now?” I said, asking it for you. You kissed my neck and nodded. “Oh, you know,” I continued. “We won’t even begin to think about how to top ourselves, okay? Not yet. It’s time to refuel and catch up with the culture. You’ll do whatever it is you’ve got up your political sleeve, we’ll get some good out of our villas and yachts, et cetera.”

You toyed with my earring. “It’s strange. I keep thinking about the old days, back when it was just us and a van. Or that stupid old bus we had in America, remember?”

I considered our gleaming Airbus, accompanied by three fleets of 120 trucks that had followed us around the world. The scent of diesel fuel had yet to leave my nose. “Those boys had no idea what was in store for them in about thirty years, did they? Not even you.”

“Never in my wildest dreams, Edge.” 

I kissed your lips and closed my eyes. When I opened them, you were staring at me. Brightening, you said, “That’s what we’ll do. We’ll write about the old days for each other again. It can be a sequel to what we did a few years ago. What do you say?”

“Oh, Bono, it’s so much work, and I--”

“I promise I’ll write more. Come on, please? Think about it.” 

I sighed. To be honest, I missed dreaming up love stories for you, and we would have nothing but time on our hands for at least a year. I pinched your cheek and said, “If we write something, we’ll need to give our boys a harder time, okay? Our first attempt was so sweet and so--it’s almost like we made it too easy for ourselves. Hardly anyone gave us trouble. They just accepted us. It was like a really long fairy tale.”

“Indeed,” you said, grinning. “We wrote a happy story about a baby band. With a certain amount of dreamy adult content.”

“Well, sure.” _I’ll give you some dreamy adult content right now._ “But its sequel would have to cover our awkward years. We’ll be an adolescent band with growing pains and complicated relationships.”

You nodded. “So in this one, we’ll still get married, and you’ll still have children with Aislinn way too soon?”

“I think fan fiction ought to be historically accurate. Otherwise it’s just...fiction. It could be about anyone.”

Your phone rang, and you felt around for it on your bedside table. You glanced at the screen and shook your head. “Nothing important. So. We will stay faithful to our history.”

“Using some artistic license when necessary, you know.” 

“Of course. But as usual, the only real difference is that we’re very much in love.”

“Exactly.”

“Perfect, beautiful, once-in-a-lifetime love.” You embraced me and kissed the back of my neck, and I smiled, warm and content in your arms. 

“You go first,” you said, biting my shoulder playfully.

“Hey, it was your idea.”

“Please?”

“What’ll you give me in return?”

You thought for a second and gave a soft grunt of satisfaction. “Whatever you end up doing to me tonight, I’ll do to you. Twice, my love,” you murmured. “When do you expect payment?”

“I’d like to receive it in advance. Or perhaps we could work out an installment plan.”


	2. Starting Over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is Edge POV and was "written" by him in 2011, but it takes place in June 1981 in Dublin, following U2's Boy tour. 
> 
> Spoiler-y issues!
> 
> * The hand-holding-on-the-plane passage was lifted from Hidden In Plain Sight. Because I can.  
> * The meeting of the minds described below actually happened in London a week later, but Edge decided to shift it to Asbury Park because reasons. He is quoting those guys exactly.  
> * In my research, Bono claimed that he was inspired to propose to Ali following a conversation with random people in a restaurant  
> * I have no idea when he proposed, so I am giving them a long engagement, what the hell  
> * U2 learned of the tragic news after the show described below, and an anonymous fan recalled meeting Bono as he hauled equipment out to the parking lot that night. U2 headlined that show, but the support act fooled them into thinking that U2 were the support act instead. But in the end it didn't matter, and they were too sad to be angry about it. Poor babies.
> 
> That's it! Thanks for reading and supporting my B/E addiction. More in...I dunno. A few weeks?

“I forgot how small this is,” you said, coughing. You opened the window to release the stagnant air from a room that had been waiting for your return since January. Mid-morning sunlight and cheery summertime birdsongs drifted in.

“All I wanna do is sleep,” I said, jetlagged and eager to shut off my mind for at least an hour or two. I flopped onto the bed. The amount of dust I razed was alarming, and your comforter was musty enough to make me sneeze three times in rapid succession. “Damn it, B, we’ve gotta wash this.”

You yawned. “Ah! My ear finally popped. Well, Paul did say it’d be a good idea for us to stay awake and try to get back on Dublin time.”

Ignoring this advice, a hungover Adam collapsed onto his mattress in the storage room he and Larry still occasionally slept in across the hall. All other Gingerbread House occupants were absent and presumably engaged in normal Thursday activities. The Virgin Prunes and U2 would be like ships passing in the night that week--they were set to tour the U.K. in a few days, and I wanted to at least touch base with Dik before they left.

“I guess we can go to the laundromat in Skerries. God knows we’ve got plenty of other things to wash,” I said, glancing at our bulging duffel bags. “Start looking for change, if we have any.”

“Sure, Edge.”

“Laundry…” Adam moaned, and I went across the hall and picked up his bag. 

“All of this?” I asked.

He tossed a few wadded-up pounds at me, saying, “If you could just dump everything into one of the…yeah...” before trailing off and hugging the former couch cushion that served as his pillow. “I love you,” he mumbled, possibly meaning me.

“See you later, Ad.”

When I returned, you were gazing at a small white box you had apparently retrieved from your top dresser drawer. Quickly placing it in an interior jacket pocket, you said, “Hey. C’mere, Edge.”

“Hey.”

Your eyes searched mine, and I gave you a half smile. “You all right?”

“I think so. Just tired.” 

“You seem...melancholy.”

“Maybe a little.” I kissed you. This was the first real chance we’d had to kiss since New York, and melancholy or not, I intended to make it count. My tongue slid along your own, and I stroked the nape of your neck. Meanwhile, my other hand moved down to your zipper and held you firmly. Possessively. “Baby.”

“How can you be so tired and yet so, mmm, so divine?” you asked dreamily, leaning into me.

“Because you’re the most beautiful boy in the world,” I whispered.

My Volkswagen, which had officially taken on Old Car Smell while we were gone, finally started after four worrisome attempts. “Dik promised to drive it every now and then so it wouldn’t do this,” I grumbled. “But I guess that was too much to ask.”

“Well, at least it’s running now.” You smiled at the back seat and placed your hand on my thigh. “Lots of memories in this little orange car.”

As I drove, you chattered away about our plans now that we were home, bemoaning the loss of your notebook for the thousandth time since it disappeared somewhere in America and dreading the impossible task that awaited us in July. The songs that eventually found their way onto _Boy_ had evolved over four years. But we would have only a couple of months to work on...whatever we were going to name it. 

“What should we name it, Edge?”

“Maybe we should write some songs before we worry about album titles.”

This earned my thigh a squeeze. “ _Untitled Sophomore Project_ ,” you mused, rolling down the window and breathing the fresh country air. Airplane contrails crisscrossed the sky. Had we really been up there only an hour ago? The two of us had been quiet and alternately dozed or were lost in thought as night rapidly became morning at 600 miles per hour. Once we passed over Greenland, I gave up trying to sleep. I placed my jacket over the armrest and held your hand beneath it for the duration of the flight. When we landed, your hand was clenched in the shape of a human heart, and mine was wrapped around it. We watched miscellaneous airport activity while the plane taxied to its gate. Then we stopped, the lights came on, and your hand slipped out of mine. I felt my hand shift from warm to cool to cold, and I missed having you all to myself already. I didn’t want to be back.

The laundromat parking lot was blessedly empty, and when we opened the door, the music of Bruce Springsteen greeted us from a tinny overhead speaker.

_Everybody needs a place to rest_  
_Everybody wants to have a home_  
_Don't make no difference what nobody says_  
_Ain't nobody like to be alone_

“Ahh!” you yelled. “Our good friend, Bruce fucking Springsteen!”

“Three nights ago! Can you believe it?” I shouted back, hoping for a second wind to match yours.

“Fuck!” Jubilant, you held an imaginary microphone in front of my face and asked, “So tell me, U2’s The Edge, what did Mr. Bruce Springsteen have to say about your band?”

I composed myself and took on the expression of A Professional Musician. “May I quote him directly?”

“Please.”

Jutting out my jaw in an approximation of Bruce’s underbite, I made my voice as husky and as Jersey as possible and said, “‘U2? I love ‘em!’”

“He loves you!” You raised your hand to an imaginary earpiece and looked serious. “I’m receiving word that...one Peter Townshend was also on hand? Paint us a word picture, The Edge.”

“Yes, the two of them were at our show in Asbury Park because they had, and I quote, ‘heard good things about us,’ and then they visited us backstage.”

“Any advice from Mr. Townshend?”

“I was so starstruck I can’t remember what I said exactly. Something like, ‘If I could write a song anywhere near as good as _My Generation_ , I’d be thrilled.’ And he said, ‘You’d also be a bloody millionaire!’” 

We cracked up. “And there you have it. Despite making virtually no money at all over there, young Irish band U2 have nevertheless conquered the entire continent of North America. We’ll have more on this story as it develops. Ken?”

I blinked. “Who’s Ken?”

“Ken’s the weather man. Over to you, Ken.”

I deposited Adam’s bills into the change machine and walked back to you with a handful of coins. We fed three machines our laundry, some detergent, and money, and looked out the window at the nothingness of Skerries.

“I promised Ali I’d call,” you said, eyeing the pay phone in the corner.

“Sure.”

I sat on the floor with my back against one of the machines, whose vibrations gave me an unsatisfactory back rub and mostly drowned you out, although I heard you say, “I can’t wait to see you.” Suddenly I was back in a New York deli just a couple of days ago. 

The four of us were seated at a small table in the jam-packed dining room. While Larry, Adam, and I were embroiled in an important discussion (what exactly _is_ pastrami?), you befriended the middle-aged married couple sitting mere inches away from you at the next table. You asked them questions about Manhattan and took an interest in their names and lives and were just being _you_ with them. They were charmed by your story of the four Irish lads who were in a band that traveled from town to town, and their singer who was so bright and inquisitive in his sharp little jacket.

“I swear, I could listen to him talk all day,” she told her husband. She raised an eyebrow and asked you, “Is there a girlfriend in the picture?”

“As a matter of fact, there is,” you said, and you told them about dear Ali back home in Dublin, and how you couldn’t wait to see her again. I returned to Adam and Larry, who were rapping along with Debbie Harry-- _'Cause the man from Mars stopped eatin' cars and eatin' bars and now he only eats guitars, get up!_. I tried not to listen as you described your girlfriend’s beauty, intelligence, character, and especially her patience. I tried and failed.

“Ever think about getting married?”

“Ehm, we’ve talked about it. A lot. I kind of feel like I have to nail things down. I’m getting pressure from her parents, and they’d be whole lot happier if I had a normal job that could support us. Because right now, it’s all on her shoulders.”

“She believes in you.”

You shrugged. “She wants us to prove that we can be a successful band before she officially shackles herself to me, is more like it. But if I don’t ask her soon, I feel like I could lose her. I mean, this girl has options. And who wants to wait around by yourself for half a year while your boyfriend’s off having fun and eating pastrami in America?”

“I suggest you scoop her up, doll,” she said, winking at her husband. 

“You won’t regret it,” he said.

“I appreciate the advice.”

“How about the rest of your band? Are they attached? What’s the story?” the woman asked. You must have known I was eavesdropping (she was so loud it was impossible not to), so you nudged me.

I looked at my hands and nodded. “I have someone I love, too.”

“Aww, isn’t that adorable, dear?”

It was so adorable I couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

I knew it was selfish to want you all to myself. You had been my constant companion in one way or another for eleven of the past twelve months, so sometimes it was easy to forget about Ali. But she and I had an understanding. We were friends and even confidants by then. Ali was remarkable and one of a kind...but also a lot like me. You needed both of us, and she knew--she must have instinctively known--that while you received a necessary and almost maternal level of comfort and stability from her, I was your creative partner, we were each other’s muses, and our connection was perpetually electric. You were my entire world. In another life, you and I would have…

The washing machine shifted gears and jangled me from my reverie. I peered between the machines and watched your boots as you shifted your weight from one foot to the other. 

_The highs are so high with you, but the lows…we’re back home, and you’re going to ask her to marry you. It isn’t just hypothetical anymore, and I need to come to terms with it, and fast. I will have to be okay with it or everything we’ve worked for will fall apart, won’t it? Which is worse, sharing you or losing you completely? What would life be like without you, and without the band, even? Like Ali, I have options, but I still need to make music. That’s just a fact. But could I start over in a different band with other people, or would that be too heartbreaking to bear? Would that be more heartbreaking than playing alongside someone I loved but couldn’t totally have?_

You sat down beside me. “Hey.” 

“Hey.”

“What’s wrong, love?”

I exhaled and paused. “You’re gonna ask her.”

Sighing, you said, “Fuck. You saw the box, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

You shook your head and ran your thumbnail along a groove in the linoleum floor. “I’m sorry. It was Mum’s ring. Dad was gonna give it to Norman, but it was too small for Geraldine’s finger, so he gave it to me.”

A tear slid down my cheek as I tried to focus on the ugly lights overhead. “I need some time to think about this, B. By myself.”

“Oh, Edge,” you said, your eyes brimming with tears. You kissed mine away, but it was quickly replaced by another. “How much time? A day?”

“No.”

“Longer?”

“We’ve got a week or two, right? Everyone has to take care of family stuff, anyway.”

“But--”

“Bono, you’re too much of a distraction. Your face--you’re too beautiful, you know? Sometimes I can’t even think about basic things when I’m around you.”

The stress vein in your forehead made itself known, and I could tell you were beginning to panic. “This sounds serious. This sounds more than serious--”

I kissed your cheek. You smelled vaguely of the airplane. “You and Ali...I saw it coming, of course. Honestly, it’s been a given for years. It’s not like we haven’t talked about it. A lot.”

“It’s okay, love.”

“I don’t know why I’m reacting this way, but it’s all just really… _real_ , all of a sudden. I need to figure out how I feel, and I have to do this alone, without you always around me and being, well, everything that I want, everything I’d automatically say yes to.”

I gazed at that stunning face of yours, made even more beautiful as it transmitted love and concern for me. The truth was, you were becoming more alluring with each passing day, and over the past year I had become achingly aware of the effect you had on people. Especially me. You kissed my temple gently as the radio station’s in-house ad switched to...

_Our life together_  
_Is so precious together_  
_We have grown_  
_We have grown_  
_Although our love_  
_Is still special_  
_Let’s take a chance and fly away_  
_Somewhere_  
_Alone_

“Ah, no.”

“Fuck.”

We were transported to a cold December night at a club in Buffalo. We had finished our set before a small and semi-responsive Monday crowd and were beginning to take our gear out to the bus. So we were oblivious to the news from the bartender’s friend, who was in his car when the deejay cut in and announced that John Lennon had been shot and killed in New York City. The story spread from the bar to the stage in a black wave of cries, sobs, and gasps.

We were, of course, devastated. Especially you. Joe O’Herlihy told you what had happened as you exited the backstage door, and you set my heavy Vox amp on the sidewalk and dropped to your knees. Embracing it, you pressed your forehead against its case. My arms were around your heaving back and shoulders the second I saw you. Paul decided a change of plans was appropriate and sprang for an overnight hotel stay, and, my chest wet with your tears and mine, I held your grieving form in our bed until sunrise.

John’s transcendent songs from _Double Fantasy_ had been inescapable ever since, and in 1981 the radio was an emotional minefield.

And there, on the floor of the Skerries laundromat, you kissed my hand, and you kissed my lips, and you said, “You will always be the one I love the most, Edge.”

“So will you.”

“That will not change. Never.”

“I know.”

“I’m gonna write to you. Every day while you’re thinking. Is that okay?”

We attempted to wipe each other’s tears away, but they just kept coming. “Yes.”

_But when I see you darling_  
_It's like we both are falling in love again_  
_It'll be just like starting over_

\-----

_Bono,_

_As you can see, I am altering our history a bit here. In real life, you and I were worried that being in a band and our particular brand of Christianity were incompatible, and for two weeks, we were on the verge of quitting U2. In this story, I’m on shaky emotional ground, and you’re attempting to convince me that your engagement to Ali will not threaten your love for me in any way._

_So that is your writing assignment for now, my love: convince me that this can work. In the process, maybe you can talk about things we did during the year-long time jump between the end of_ Fictitious Characters _and this laundromat scene. You could describe the recording of_ Boy _, for example, along with our first experiences abroad in Europe and the United States and our deepening sexual bond. I’ll continue to write my narrative and will drop your letters into it._

_Seduce me as only you can._

_Edge_


	3. Everywhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks, I thought I would have a new chapter in three weeks, but it's been exactly one month. I feel like the writing happens more slowly this year, so I thank you for your patience! This chapter pops around from one setting to another, and I hope it's not too much of a jumble. But I know if I had experienced a year of travel, adventure, growth, and fun, I would have trouble describing it in a linear kind of way. Ultimately the sequence of events described here doesn't matter too much. 
> 
> Trigger warning: in one of the (true) anecdotes below, a homophobic slur is used, and I am leaving it in there because it is a direct quote, and that word was inescapable in the 80s, 90s, and yeah, the 00s (and before and after, unfortunately). Sorry if it offends, but I'm just trying to keep it real.
> 
> Some notes!
> 
> "Bono and the boys": I've never really liked the way deejays call them that.  
> Readers of Fictitious Characters will recognize certain apartments, houses, restaurants, etc.  
> The groupie story is true.  
> The "men in cars asking Bono things" stories are true.  
> Dik was in U2 for a teeny tiny time way back in 1976. I didn't put it in F.C. because I already had plenty to write about.  
> Thanks to MissEllaVation for tossing me the name "Dermot." I needed a random roadie name because they had a few by 1980.  
> The Battery Park/subway sequence was my small tribute to "Angel of Harlem."  
> Bono's 20th birthday story is true, but the permanent marker part is not true. <3
> 
> On with the show! Thanks for reading and supporting this crazy thing I'm making.

_Old Edge,_

_As requested: please find attached the first in a series of letters in which Young Me attempts to convince Young You that we need to stay together. Do whatever you like with it, and I hope it doesn’t disrupt whatever you’re writing. In other news, now that I have been home for a week, the Bono-shaped depression in my favorite couch downstairs has made a triumphant comeback, Ali has been shoving far too many delicious meals into my mouth in an obvious attempt to fatten me up before the slaughter, I am bereft now that the girls have returned to school, and I continue to be besieged by two little boys who look suspiciously like myself, please advise._

_Love,  
Old Bono_

_\-----_

_Old Bono,_

_Thank you for your letter, and you will see what I’ve done with it below, eventually. I’ve got to say I’m enjoying our new direction in this reimagining of our story. Writing about confusion and longing is oddly satisfying. Or maybe I just like making you beg…? Possibly. Stop by tomorrow night (late, computer lair, use your key if you still have it), and we’ll find out._

_Love,  
Old Edge_

__

You were, of course, everywhere.

The empty passenger seat. My left thigh, sitting there like an idiot without your hand on it. The obscure, willow-lined lane we sometimes pulled into when your bed was too far away. Any number of shabby bus stops where we used to sit and dream about...exactly what we had just accomplished. The song on the radio-- _The Boys Are Back In Town_ \--introduced by Dave Fanning, who reported that “Bono and the boys” had returned to Dublin that morning from their tour of the States. The door to the walk-up apartment Dik and I still shared, where many times you had stood and tap-tap-tapped the heel of your boot against the landing while I fumbled with my keys. The wall just inside the door against which you or just as often I would be pushed and kissed greedily. A bar of soap you liked that had been waiting for you on the bathroom sink for so long that a horizontal crack had started to form.

My brother was out for the day, apparently, so I went straight to my room. No longer motivated to sleep on a freshly laundered bedspread, I noticed the glint of a dark-but-still-coppery hair on my pillow before I closed my eyes. My exhausted brain somehow managed to produce an Oscar-worthy kaleidoscope of dreams and images from the past year, so when I opened my eyes I was completely disoriented.

Oh.

I was in the apartment.

You were going to ask Ali to marry you.

I heard the clatter of silverware and a drawer being closed in the kitchenette. Dik had returned, and the familiar smell of pepperoni and tomato sauce mingling with Pizzaland’s humid cardboard boxes slipped under my bedroom door. I got up and thought about the dozens of post-show pizzas we had devoured during our time in the States: huge, foldable slices in New York, a five pound behemoth in Chicago, clams in Boston, vegetables and weird white sauces in California. Most of them put our local favorite to shame, but the pizza of one’s childhood always holds a sentimental and irresistible allure, no matter how average it is.

“Hey,” I said as Dik turned around.

“I knew this would wake you up,” he said, putting his slice down and coming over to hug me. 

“Missed you,” I said, leaning into his slight frame maybe a bit too much. I was used to something more substantial.

He looked me over. “When was the last time you ate?”

“I can’t remember.”

We took the pizzas in their boxes into the living room and sat down on our ratty tweed couch. Dik ate and I gorged while we caught up. The Virgin Prunes were a few weeks away from releasing their second single on Rough Trade and were gearing up for a U.K. tour to promote it. My brother was predictably modest about their success and bemoaned their revolving door of bass players and drummers. But as he played their excellent first record, which I was unable to find while we were on tour, I recognized the same glimmer of excitement that was in his eyes just before we blew things up in our backyard years ago.

“Well, tell me about America,” he said.

“I don’t know where to begin.” My memories had yet to coalesce into actual stories and were still just as disorganized as our journey up, down, and around the country had been: east coast, west coast, midwest, southeast, west coast, east coast. “I think this must be what it’s like for soldiers coming home from a war, except our war was this nonstop fun adventure, with a few snags here and there, but....like a soldier, I’ve just seen so much.”

“But you loved it?”

I nodded. “Oh, god yes. Maybe ask specific questions.”

“Okay, specific questions. What city liked you the most?”

“Boston, no question. It might as well have been West Dublin. Extreme West Dublin. The faces in the crowd looked like faces you’d see here. It was really strange. College radio--and there are so many colleges in the area--they had been playing our music a lot, they said, and one of the stations had a special broadcast of our entire show that night. But the most amazing thing was when the crowd sang along with us, loudly. They knew a lot of our songs, Dik.”

“Wow. Good for you,” he said, pointing the tip of his slice at me.

I leaned forward. “We were three songs in-- _I Will Follow_ \--when it really began. I love that one because I get to start it, and it was so cool because as soon as I did, it was like...instant recognition. They all started nodding and yelling, and when Larry and Adam joined in they were jumping. They were a little shaky on the first verse, but the _walk away, walk away_ s were so loud. Amazing.”

After the first chorus, you came over to me as I played, and your beaming, awestruck expression was one I’ll never forget. Your boyish smile, your eyes brimming with tears...you clapped your hands twice over your left shoulder with the kind of gusto that would have seemed comical coming from anyone but you as you pranced over to your faithful, grinning Adam. I glanced back at Larry, who was laughing. This was what we had been working for: this moment, this crowd, this connection, this country, and it arrived as a gift in the form of a club called Paradise. 

The entire show was a triumph, and I didn’t think you’d ever come down from it. They were still cheering as you pulled me into a sweaty embrace in a nook behind the stage, and we kissed, long and hard. “At last, at last,” you whispered to me, and I wanted to stop time and live in that moment with you forever.

How could I possibly walk away from experiences like that one?

“Give me another question.”

“Another question...any fun backstage stories?”

“You mean, like, groupies?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, we met a lot of fans, or at least people who were seeing us for the first time and we wanted them to become fans. And they were always nice to us and interested in the music and Ireland, too--a lot of college kids, you know, but younger ones as well. But it was never, uh, sexual, or like what you’d imagine goes on with Led Zeppelin backstage with drink and drugs or girls or whatever. We barely even drank. We were on such a tight budget. Some days we could barely afford to feed ourselves, to be honest.”

“You didn’t lose money, did you?”

“We kind of broke even, I think?” I took a drink of water and realized I needed to drink a lot more water.

“Huh.”

“Oh wait, one time in Cleveland, I think, a couple of older women came backstage. Maybe they were 25? But they didn’t care about our band. They were groupies of rock ‘n’ roll in general, and they just liked being part of that scene. I assumed they would be there for the next band and the band after that, and it didn’t matter to them. They were kind of hard and tough and way too sexy for U2, and they sort of took one look at us--me writing in my notebook, Adam coughing and sneezing, and Bono and Larry in the corner actually reading the Bible. We kind of gawked at them, and after a couple of minutes they decided we weren’t quite up to speed on what being in a rock band is all about, so they took off in a hurry.”

“Why am I not surprised by any of this?”

“Well, I think the funniest thing happened when we played New York for the first time.” 

One of my greatest pleasures that year was seeing the world through your eyes. A big believer in the necessity of little luxuries, Paul wanted us to feel special that day, so he hired a limousine to drive us into Manhattan. I couldn’t wait to see your expression when we emerged from the Queens Midtown Tunnel, and your wide, bright eyes and gaping mouth did not disappoint. “Fucking hell, Edge!” you shouted, gaping at the cabs, the concrete, and the sheer size of it all. “We’re in an actual movie set,” Adam said as Paul and the driver laughed. I gave your shoulder a squeeze, and all four of our faces remained glued to the car’s misty windows until we reached our hotel.

“So we checked into our hotel, this grand old building, and while we waited in the lobby for them to get our rooms ready, Bono became restless and decided to get another look at the place from across the street and maybe take a walk around the block, too. I thought about joining him, but I wanted to make sure my guitars were okay. Also it was cold. ‘Glad I have this, then,’ he said, and he was wearing that fake fur coat of his. Do you know the one?”

“The one that Gavin was trying to convince him to wear?”

“From his great Aunt Oona.”

“Okay. Yes.”

God, you were cute in that coat. “So out he goes in his little coat and his little plaid pants and his little high heeled boots and his pretty little face, and not even five minutes later he comes back in a huff, saying, ‘Some fella out there pulled up to the corner and asked me how much it’d cost for me to have sex with him! Can you believe it?’ We all started laughing. And Larry says, ‘Well, just _look_ at you, man!’ Then Adam says, ‘Take it as the compliment it is, Bono.’ So that was pretty hilarious.”

“But he kept wearing that coat anyway, I assume?”

“How could he not? He said it made him feel like David Bowie.”

“Sure.”

“Another time in Detroit he was wearing that same getup, just walking on some sidewalk by himself, and a guy drove behind him and assumed he was a girl.”

“Seriously?”

“I mean, his hair was getting kind of long, and he’s not very tall, and...well. Walk behind him sometime.”

Dik grinned. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“So the guy rolled down his window and called out to him, ‘Hey, wanna ride, baby?’ And Bono turned around, confused, and treated him to a flash of nose, chin, and jaw that did not add up, and the guy started yelling, ‘Faggot, you goddamn faggot!’ at him.”

“Uh oh.”

“Bono yelled, ‘Fuck you!’ and ran up to the car, seeing red and ready to fight. Then he noticed that this man was enormous, plus he had a gun. An actual gun! So he took off running as fast as he could down an alley and lost the guy pretty quickly. But after that we had a discussion about walking around by ourselves in strange cities. Not that I would have been much help, but you know. Safety in numbers.”

“Did anyone make a pass at you?”

“Not really, but this one lady said I ought to be a hand model, so I guess I’ve got that as a plan B.”

B. 

Oh, B.

“Ehm,” I continued, rubbing the bridge of my nose after a long pause. “Bono’s gonna ask Ali to marry him.”

This sudden detour took Dik by surprise. “Oh. Hey. Shit, Edge. Are you okay?”

I exhaled and looked around the room. “Not exactly. It was only a matter of time, and she really is an incredible girl, just, so special and so good for him, and no one has been more patient and understanding of what he and I--” I swallowed and blinked a few times. “She’s okay with us, but there’s something so...official about marriage. Husband. Wife. And I’ve had him all to myself for almost a year, and it’s hitting me kind of hard.”

“I’m sorry.”

“This is why I'm taking a break. To think.”

“A break?”

“From him. From the band. Just for a week or two to stand back and get some perspective, you know? Can I even exist without them? They’ve been my entire world for almost five years now.”

“For what it’s worth, I can tell you that there is life after U2.” He chuckled ironically and made a sweeping, _behold all of this_ motion with his hands. “Such as it is.”

“You should know,” I said, remembering those awkward, early weeks when we attempted to have two guitarists.

“Bullet dodged.”

I put the remnants of my pizza in Dik’s box and closed the lid. “Nice to be home.”

He patted my shoulder. “Good to have you back.”

“I’m gonna take a shower.”

“Godspeed.”

Of course there you were in the shower. Never one to waste anything, I foolishly brought your horizontal-line-marred soap in with me, and with its cedarwood scent came a cascade of flashbacks. Oh, the things we had done to each other there, hot and wet under the too-bright ceiling light. But I loved looking at you and seeing every bit of you so clearly…

Best to think about something else. Except my mind returned to you again, back to when we were in New York for the first time. That afternoon Paul had people to meet: an important talent agent and a woman from Warner Brothers who wanted to help us gain a foothold in America. Somebody from Rolling Stone would be at the show, too. So the stakes were high. But you wanted to see at least a bit of the city, and we had about four hours before load-in time at the Ritz. If we stayed in the hotel all afternoon, you reasoned, we’d only become more nervous. Paul placed the four of us (plus crew members Dermot and Joe “for protection”) on a train headed to Battery Park.

We emerged from the subway station into the boiler room of the world’s economic engine. I could tell that Larry was jet lagged and intimidated by the crowded train and the frenetic pace of Wall Street, so when we were able to walk as a group down the sidewalks, I tried to make sure he was in the middle. If you felt uneasy with your surroundings, you didn’t show it, and I noticed that people’s eyes were drawn to you. Who could blame them?

Snow flurries melted on contact with the pavement and dripped down the buildings, making them grayer and more forbidding as they blended in with the sky. But the flakes clung to the park’s grassy areas and decorated the delicate limbs of trees like fairy lights. And that’s how I started to view New York: hard and occasionally bleak, but with glimpses of real beauty.

“Is that supposed to be it?” Larry asked once we arrived at the southern tip of Manhattan. He pointed across the harbor at a blurry, green figure in the distance.

“Yeah. Probably not the best weather for sightseeing,” I said, wiping snowflakes from my eyebrows.

He shivered. “She’s so far away. I thought we’d be closer.”

Dermot and Joe took pity on us and bought tickets for the ferry so we could actually look at the Statue of Liberty. I suspected they really wanted to see her, too. While we waited for the ferry to arrive, we heard the sound of drums and a small crowd cheering. We walked over to investigate and saw a couple of kids drumming on overturned plastic buckets. Larry was delighted. Cardboard sheets were spread along the sidewalk in front of them, and dancers, the likes of which none of us had ever seen, spun around on their backs and moved with mesmerizing robotic grace. Spellbound, you laughed and applauded.

Later on the ferry, as the statue finally came into view, we leaned against the railing, and you adopted the statue’s pose. Larry asked, “What if one of our great-grandparents had decided to come here? We wouldn’t even be in a band. We wouldn’t be standing here together right now.” We nodded and thought about the millions of Irish immigrants who would have seen this statue as a symbol of hope before building their new lives in this immense country. And there we were looking at her, too: four Irish lads with a brand new album not even two months old.

“She’s what you might call a handsome woman,” Adam joked, and we considered Liberty’s rather androgynous face.

“I kind of like that she’s not some beauty queen. She looks tough. She has to be, right?” I said.

“ _That’s_ who she looks like!” you exclaimed, and we turned to you. “Elvis! She looks like Elvis. Doesn’t she?”

After that, I wouldn’t be able to think of anything else when I saw her.

Later as we waited on the subway platform, we watched a singer accompanied by a keyboardist as they performed a medley of holiday songs. Her presence was magnetic, and her voice sounded like a trumpet. What she was doing down there was anyone’s guess. She wore a white fur coat over what may have been a dingy wedding gown. Red shoes poked out from beneath it. A spray of plastic poinsettias decorated her hair, and as she sang _Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas_ , the two of you locked eyes, possibly due to an unspoken fur coat fellowship, and possibly in recognition of each other’s star power. “I wish I knew more about jazz,” you murmured to me.

“Where are you boys from?” she asked you at the conclusion of her song.

“Dublin, Ireland,” you said.

“My, my. Far from home.”

“These lads are my home. We’re a band.” You put some coins in her hat and kissed her hand.

“Well, sweetheart, welcome to New York.”

“Welcome to America,” added the keyboardist, and they began _Blue Christmas_ as our train rolled up.

People had created makeshift sidewalk shops near our hotel--mostly old books, records, souvenirs, and counterfeit handbags. We paused at a display of used jazz records and tapes on a card table minded by a Gil Scott-Heron lookalike. “We want to learn about jazz,” you said, not knowing a stranger. “What should we listen to?”

“On tape,” I added. 

“Can’t go wrong with these two,” he said, picking out a couple by John Coltrane and Miles Davis. “I thought I’d try ‘em out on cassette, but they sound a whole lot better on vinyl.”

“All we’ve got is a tape recorder, so…” you said, catching a glimpse of the top of the Empire State Building and losing your train of thought. I paid for the tapes, thanked him, and we caught up with the others. “Ready to play your first gig in the United States, B?” I asked you.

“No. You?”

“No.”

“So fucking nervous, Edge.”

“You’d never know it.”

“Let’s get ‘em,” you said, grinning.

And by some miracle, we got ‘em. You had something to prove, Larry and Adam dealt with a few rough moments but were mostly rock solid, and according to you, I had never sounded better, even though my hands were shaking when I adjusted my Memory Man between numbers. The people Paul wanted us to impress were impressed, and we returned to our hotel room in a wired and relieved mood. 

You turned on a light by the bed and popped _’Round Midnight_ into the tape player. Our view was merely the side of another big building, but you opened the curtains and gazed at its lit windows and watched the traffic eight floors below us. I joined you there, and you said, “This music makes me feel like I’m in a detective movie.”

“Or maybe a movie about a painter.”

We pretended to appreciate the obvious coolness of the music, the subtleties of which went right over our heads. It created a mood that was decidedly sophisticated, and it made me feel naive in comparison. But I liked being naive with you. I liked seeing this country with you for the first time. I liked your happy face.

“Beautiful boy,” I said, kissing your cheek. “No wonder that man wanted you.”

“That man…?”

“The one who stopped you on the street today...?”

“Oh, heh, yeah. I almost forgot.” Your arm encircled my waist. “Did that turn you on, Edge?”

In a strange way, it did. While the man was probably a creep, and while you were obviously so much more than a disposable sex object, some base part of me felt validated. Other men saw you and wanted you. Immediately. I wasn’t alone in that. 

_Of course he’s beautiful--the kind of beauty that literally stops traffic--and he loves me, and he’s mine, and you can’t have him._

“I like having something that other people want,” I said.

“And that something is me.”

“That something is you.”

I had you undress for me as I sat on the bed and watched. Then we cleaned each other up. Post-show showers in hotels were still a luxury and would continue to be so that year, as most nights would find us back on the bus and on our way to the next far-flung city. We became acquainted with truck stop showers, and you were adept at mimicking the truckers’ lingo and accents when you attempted to blend in with them, although Larry, Adam, and I could always be counted on to laugh at inopportune moments and blow your cover.

You groaned with pleasure as I scrubbed the expanse of your shoulders under the hot water. Your backside was tantalizingly pink, and I pressed my body against yours and took you in my slippery hand. “Baby, can we…?”

You sighed. “I wish we could, but I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, love, don’t worry.”

“Something about traveling this far, maybe, and just...nerves from today? I’m sorry.”

“Baby, it’s fine. I understand, and me, too.”

“First chance we get.”

“It doesn’t even matter. I love your mouth.” _Every man who’s interested in you imagines those rosy lips all over his body._

“I love yours, too.” _And he imagines worshipping you with his._

Our mouths proved their love for each other for a long time until, soaking wet and gasping with need, we turned off the water. Not eager to forsake our tropical cocoon for the cool air of the rest of our room, we remained inside the shower.

With one hand, I pinned your wrists to the line of decorative tiles above your head, and I slid my other hand down your warm, wet chest. “That man would only have you for a half-hour or whatever.”

“If that.”

“If that. I have you for months. Free of charge.”

“Here I am right now,” you whispered, kissing my jaw. “And I’m so eager to please you, Edge.”

_He thinks he knows what you would do, but he can’t know how reverent you are as you kiss your way down, unwilling to allow anything--clavicle, nipple, wrist, belly, hipbone--to go unappreciated. He can’t know the way you caress an erection with your hand and the side of your face before you kiss it gently, patiently. He can’t know the way you look up in that knowing, bright-eyed way of yours before taking complete possession. He can’t know your soft exhalation as you relax and settle, your feet tucked beneath your perfect ass. He can’t know the compulsion to lean forward and take in its curves or the compulsion to hold your damp head in trembling hands, to stroke your hair and ears and jaw and throat as you bring waves of pleasure, hard waves, fast waves, fluttering waves, melting waves._

_He thinks he knows what he would do, but he can’t know how grateful you are for every word of praise, every tender glance or touch. He can’t know how pearlescent and soft your skin is, especially in places that never see daylight, and he might suspect, but he can’t know about the freckles. He can’t know your scent varies from day to day but at its core lies the essence of a young man who is overjoyed to be alive. He can’t know how lonely you get up there all by yourself with no one to kiss your eyelids, your chin, your neck. He can’t know that even though you’re experiencing what appears to be more pleasure than anyone has ever known, you’ll need to pause periodically so those kisses can happen and you can be reassured that you’re loved. He can’t know the way you try, oh you try to stay still, but after a while, your bucking hips will attempt to direct the sequence of events that will lead to a shudder, a gasp, and a cry that will haunt his dreams._

_He can’t know how your love can make a man ignore any number of red flags so he can have more of it. He can’t know how your love can simultaneously ruin and save his life._

_And he can’t know the way you look when you're completely in love and sleepy and sweet, your head on a pillow and all defenses down, and receiving a kiss on your forehead, on the tip of your nose._

*

You slipped an envelope through the mail slot sometime during the night, and the next morning I found a several-page letter simply addressed to “Edge.” I opened it carefully--I missed you so much that I was sentimental about the envelope’s adhesive. _He licked this,_ I thought, and I gave myself a well-deserved eye roll.

_Edge. Oh, Edge._

_First of all, I miss you. This is very strange, and you are, of course, everywhere. Need I say more? Take all the time you need, but please know that this has me rattled. Rattled._

_Second of all, a little news that I will deliver in one sentence and get it out of the way: Ali is receptive to the idea but remains highly skeptical about my ability to make any kind of money, and if we get married, it will be way off in the future, i.e. at least a year from now and probably much longer, so that was a fun discussion to have and incredibly romantic and the kind of thing every young girl dreams about, really, and also she did not accept the ring because the mood wasn’t right, the end._

_Back to you. Hi, Edge._

_The past year or so has been extraordinary--tumultuous. So many images are flooding my mind now that we’re home and finally able to catch our breath. I think memories are what I’m going to write about in these letters. And I will write one every day, so please promise me that you’ll look for them, okay?_

_Birthdays. You make good things happen on my birthday, and we had high hopes for my twentieth, didn’t we? A routine show a few hours away in Ballina (such a pretty name for a city of thugs). It was one in a series of warm-up gigs in anticipation of another U.K. tour, and you and I were keen to celebrate afterward. The gig was fine--we gained a few dozen new fans--but after the show, and you know where this is going, a bunch of those bastards decided to attack Dermot and Joe and fuck up our gear. As soon as we noticed what was going on, the four of us joined the fray, and I was alternately proud of and angry with you for even thinking about messing up your hands by fighting them. We gave as good as we got, but they broke Adam’s glasses, and they smashed a chair across my back. This made you livid, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard you scream like that, before or since, The Edge. As the police arrived and as you helped me up from the pavement, I found myself beaming at your handsome, worried face and thinking, “That’s my boyfriend.”_

_One chat with the police, one dreary trip to the emergency room, and one large painkiller later, I was lying on a makeshift mattress in the back of the van. Everyone donated cushions, bags of clothes, and wadded-up sweatshirts and coats, and these allowed me to lie on my stomach in relative comfort as we drove home. Your lap was my pillow._

_You fussed over me and fed me treats from your mum. And even though I spent the ride stumbling in and out of the pill’s twilight haze, I’m sure I felt one of your tears land just above my lip. I thought, “I could wipe it away, but why would I want to do that, and anyway how can I when my hand is all the way down there by my side and moving it would require actual effort? And just look at you: upset and concerned about me, but I’m tough, Edge, I’m really so tough, even when chairs get broken over my back on my birthday.”_

_It was nearly daylight when we arrived at the Gingerbread House. We slept for as long as we could--we had another gig that evening. Then, after cooing over my many colorful bruises in the shower, you brought me to a trembling (and necessary) post-birthday climax in our bed. Then you told me to roll over, and you proceeded to draw on my back with a black permanent marker. You created a temporary tattoo of guitars that incorporated the bruises and made me feel like an outlaw. Even Larry had to admit it looked “kind of cool.”_

_And isn’t the way you treated me the purest kind of love? I don’t need to ask that question because we both know it is, and that was just one of hundreds of days last year when I felt your love, your miraculous, selfless love for me. I think you’re wise for wanting to take a step back and look at what we’ve created: this world of love and creativity and friendship and sex and adventure. Because it’s beautiful. I am addicted to it._

_And yes, when Ali is away, I miss her. But Edge. Edge, Edge, Edge, I yearn for you._

_I love you,_  
Bono  


I smiled at your letter. I read it again. I kissed your signature. I picked up the phone and sighed while I dialed the number.

“Hello?” 

“Hi, Aislinn. It’s Edge. I’m home.”


	4. Symmetry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Can we just skip the part where I apologize for taking a long time? Because this chapter took some TIME. It's complex and a lot of emotions are bouncing off each other. 
> 
> We have flashbacks *within flashbacks* and I don't know it you're gonna hate me for them, but there it is. MORE FIC ABOUT U2!
> 
> Okay, some items:  
> * The girls joined the tour in Cincinnati instead of Pittsburgh, but I don't think it matters.  
> * U2 occasionally played "I Will Follow" three times during those early concerts (wild!), and Pittsburgh was not one of those times, but I made them do it anyway! I'm a madwoman, I tell you!  
> * The Rolling Stone article and quote is real.  
> * The Springsteen song is called "Candy's Room," from Darkness On The Edge Of Town, an album Bono had in F.C.  
> * I made her hair a little shorter, but not THAT much shorter.  
> * Diane and the whole magazine thing is fictitious.  
> * The water gun story is completely true.  
> * More on the working vacation in the next chapter. :)  
> * The Close/Closer/Closest vibes are intentional.  
> * That curve is my favorite.  
> * Beauty And The Beat is a perfect album.
> 
> There ya go! Happy holidays, dear reader, and please stay safe. Much love.

_Bono,_

_I’m afraid the inevitable Edge and Aislinn love arc has begun, and as I’m writing this introduction, I’m realizing that I really must inject more sex into our own story or somebody may become jealous. [Does so.] I’m back. Hopefully that will suffice. If it doesn’t, perhaps your next contribution to this story will have to be...just completely filthy._

_Love,  
Edge_

I took a deep breath of Dublin’s sunny, late spring air. Cities have unique smells, I’d learned, and Dublin’s was a combination of wet rocks, the sea, and chlorophyll, with just a hint of mildew. 

Walking was a luxury to me. I’d become accustomed to being a passenger in cars, vans, taxis, airplanes, and buses. They moved us from one place to the next, while we forever kept an eye on the clock and traced our paths on maps. A twenty-minute walk from the apartment to Aislinn’s record store, with no one to wait for or answer to, made me experience true autonomy in a way that was exhilarating but also a little sad. I missed your morning chatter and the rush of scenery I’d probably never see again.

But Pearce Street was welcoming, with its modest buildings and colorful doorways, and I stepped into a coffeehouse for tea. I needed to get my head together before I saw Aislinn. I sat beside a window and flipped backwards through the pages of the journal she had given me a couple of birthdays ago. It was filled with drawings and descriptions of the most intense years of my life.

_27/03/81: Somehow, he’s lost his lyrics. I can’t say I’m surprised, but Jesus Christ._

_19/02/81: Rolling Stone featured us in a major article that ended with B saying, “It is my ambition to travel to America and give it what I consider it wants and needs.” Needless to say, I plan to deliver a variation on this sentence if/when we ever get to share a bedroom on this godforsaken, privacy-free slog across Europe._

_21/01/81: Our winter break is over, and the third leg of the tour has begun. We’re on the bus somewhere between Dublin and Belfast. Lashing rain. Aislinn was teary-eyed (surprising), and we kissed goodbye (even more surprising). B is leaning against me and pretending to be asleep._

That January was filled with parties, family obligations, radio appearances, and a couple of magazine interviews. Aislinn and I went to a few concerts together. U2 had been on the road since September, and we were keen for some downtime, but our next album was due by the end of the summer, and the new songs were only beginning to germinate. My guitars and I needed as much uninterrupted time together as we could get. So I disappeared as often as possible and let Ali enjoy a month of unlimited Bono access. 

The two of you were crying and kissing beneath the awning in front of the small performance space we rented. Aislinn was late in seeing us off, but luckily so was our bus. She parked her little Fiat and joined the three of us, apologizing and deftly blocking my view of you and your girlfriend, who was arranging your hair in that way of hers that I didn’t especially like.

“I wasn’t sure if it’d be ready today, but it was,” Aislinn said breathlessly, handing me a guitar strap decorated with a series of black-on-black, feminine eyes. “I designed the eyes myself.”

I was touched. “This is amazing. You shouldn’t have.”

“Oh, but I had to,” she said with a smile.

“It’s perfect, Aislinn. Thank you.”

She gave me a hug—her raincoat felt like a wet umbrella, and it soaked the front of my jacket. “This way I’ll get to see Europe and America with you, kind of.”

“I have some going away presents for you,” I said, handing her a plastic bag. “It’s just a sketch book and some art supplies. Maybe keep them in the bag until you get home, so they won’t get wet.”

She peeked inside the crinkled plastic and smiled. “Thanks, Edge! Oh, and I have stamps for you,” she said, digging into her purse. “Please send me postcards when you can, okay? The stupider the better.”

“Sure thing. Good idea.”

We gazed at each other, not really knowing what to say as the clunky old charter bus pulled up. Its arrival elicited a sob from Ali, who was drowned out by the sounds of our small road crew springing into action and loading our instruments into the back. Aislinn’s expression darkened. “Hey,” I said.

“It’s just...winter is so dreary and depressing.”

I felt bad about my eagerness to continue our adventure. “I know. I’m sorry. I promise I’ll write to you.” She hugged me again and looked up at me with her remarkable, watery eyes. I kissed her cheek, and she kissed mine. Then, after a pause, she kissed me again, very close to the corner of my mouth, and I swallowed. And then...

I felt like I was kissing a flower. Her mouth was smaller than yours, but her lips were plumper, and her creamy skin was all softness and perfume. Her shy tongue found mine for an instant, and she tasted like peppermint candy. My free hand found its way into her bobbed hair, and hers was on my neck, and it was good, it was so good. I was kissing a girl, a woman. The electric jolt I felt the first time you and I kissed was not there, and it was replaced with a brief sting of guilt. But this was immediately followed by my brain’s reassuring barrage of _This is okay, this is fair, he’s doing it too, why should I deny myself, she’s good to me, she’s so beautiful and smart, this is fair, this is fair, he’s doing it too, it turns me on, it's symmetrical, symmetrical, symmetrical._

While this was happening, Adam and Larry arrived, followed by Paul and a couple of his friends, and the bus engine rumbled to life again. Aislinn and I smiled at each other in a puff of exhaust fumes. “Wow,” she mouthed, and with a wink, she spun around and ran back to her car. Ali had already left, and you stood there watching me with a slightly slack-jawed expression. 

I blinked a few times, and grabbing my hand, you pulled me into the rehearsal space. I followed and soon found myself standing in the shadows behind some tables that were tipped against a wall. “You’re mine now,” you said with a hint of a growl. Locked in your embrace, I shivered happily and tugged on the neck of your shirt. Your mouth was aggressive and hot, and with it came a collision of teeth and chins and noses, and the rasp of your stubble against my lips reminded me that I was kissing a man, kissing you, and your tongue erased all traces of my mouth’s previous occupant. “Mine.”

“Yours. And you know what, B?”

“What?”

“You’re mine, too.”

“Edge.”

“Baby.”

“Yeah.”

I was so preoccupied with this memory that I nearly spilled my tea when a young girl stopped by my table and tapped me on the shoulder. “Sorry,” she said. “You’re Edge from U2, aren’t you?”

I smiled. Getting recognized was still completely novel to me. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

“I knew it!” she said excitedly. “Would you sign...I don’t have anything...wanna sign my purse?” 

“I’d love to.”

She wanted to know about our next album, which I assured her would be released in the fall, and she asked me what you were like.

“What does he seem like to you?” I asked.

“He seems like a lot of fun. He seems...amazing.”

I nodded. “He’s my favorite person.” Why not?

“Oh my god, that’s so cute!”

She said goodbye, all giggles and smiles, and I returned to my journal, flipping ahead to the next time I saw Aislinn, which was about a month ago. 

_25/04/81: The 3As (Ali, Ann, Aislinn) will be joining us in Pittsburgh, along with Steve Lillywhite. He wants to see how we’ve grown as a band before recording our next single with us in_ The Bahamas! _It’s going to be a working vacation, and the girls will come along with us. Ali engineered their involvement and will undoubtedly pay the airfare, too, but she was thoughtful enough to ask me if I minded first. B handed me the phone at our last stop, and she said she didn’t want to presume, but she thought I might feel more comfortable if Aislinn came along and kept me company while she and B were, and I quote, “...you know.” She longs for symmetry as much as anyone else in this love quadrilateral, if not more, I think._

I had a week to get used to this idea. You took my temperature repeatedly and were even more affectionate than usual. One night on the bus, as soon as you were confident that everyone else was asleep, you began an extended kissing campaign that traveled from my right earlobe to my left wrist. “Edge, my love, Edge, my darling,” you purred against my skin. 

“I love you.”

You smiled up at me, your shiny lips and eyes reflecting Toledo’s amber street lights. “Still okay with next week?”

I held you against my chest. “This will be strange, but this will be fine,” I said, hoping to somehow bring that idea into being. “It’ll be nice to see Aislinn again.”

“I just hope it won’t be a problem for us.”

“Do you want to really talk about it?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” I said, putting my arm around your shoulders. Our noses were nearly touching, so I leaned in a fraction of an inch until they bumped. I closed my eyes and whispered, “Are you and Ali going to have sex?”

You looked down. “I don’t know. Maybe. She doesn’t want to get pregnant if— _if_ —anything happens.” You gave your bag a gentle nudge with your socked foot. “I bought some...precautions...back at that truck stop. She made me. Anyway, it’s easier to buy them here than at home, obviously.”

“Better safe than sorry.”

“You can have some, too. In case…” You kissed my cheek. “I want you to be alright.”

“I have no idea what I’m gonna do with Aislinn. What should I do?”

The bus had entered farmland once again, and even though it was awfully dark, the pale half moon illuminated your face just enough for me to watch possessiveness and concern fight for dominance across its features. You wanted me alone, all to yourself, but you also wanted to feel less bad about being with Ali. You sighed. “Do whatever feels right, and don’t do anything that feels wrong.”

“What about things that are...in the middle?”

“It's all in the middle, isn't it, Edge?”

“Yeah.”

I fell silent for a moment, looked out the window, and saw a moth-swarmed light beside an implement shed with a gravel driveway. 

Your lips grazed the side of my neck. “Talk to me.” 

I slid the window open a bit and was greeted with the smell of damp topsoil, which was sweet and oddly reminiscent of clean laundry. That leg of the tour took us through the Midwestern states, where planting season was underway. Plows turned over the dormant earth and exposed massive swathes of dirt in colors that ranged from red to black. I took a deep breath and faced you as an embarrassing tear slid down my cheek.

“I’m worried you won’t want me as much after you’ve been with Ali.”

“Oh, love,” you protested quietly, and you took me in your arms. “No.”

Shrugging, I said, “Maybe it’ll feel better, and you have no idea yet.”

I could hear the smile in your voice as you murmured, “Ah, fuck.”

I exhaled. “What?”

“Edge. Ehm, I had sex with a girl once. Before I even knew you.”

I coughed, gasped, and laughed simultaneously. “You little slut! Who?”

“You don't know her. It was at my other school. She was older than me, and it was just one time. Probably for the best because her da was a gorilla.”

“Why am I only just now hearing about this?”

You yawned. “Because it didn't matter. I think she was using me to make another boy jealous. But, uh, I know what it feels like. And, I mean, it was good. I can't lie. But it wasn't as good as what we do.”

“But that was the first time and maybe…”

“Not even close, Edge. What we do...is far sexier than anything I've ever known. Don't forget that. And maybe you should find out for yourself, if Aislinn wants to, and if you're curious or whatever. You like girls; I know you do.”

You raised an eyebrow and I nodded. To pass the time on occasional free afternoons, the two of us went to movie matinees, where we sat in the back and held hands and whispered. Usually those theaters were in the heart of the cities we played, and they were reliably grand but run-down. 

It didn't matter what was playing. We just liked being together in the dark and on a date, like normal people. One afternoon we were watching a middle-of-the-road James Bond movie that co-starred a brunette Bond girl who was exactly your type. I pointed this out, and you squeezed my hand and whispered, “The things we could do with her, Edge.” I was unable to follow the plot after that because my mind came up with its own movie for me to watch.

This idea found its way into bed with us—just something to talk about and play with. We had no intention of actually carrying it out in real life, and certainly not with Ali or Aislinn. But sometimes we’d see a woman who inspired...thoughts. And each of us imagined a sort of nameless, platonic-ideal woman, and conveniently enough, she wanted to be with both of us. At the same time. It was less about this woman and more about how we would experience her together and what we would learn about each other in the process.

“We share everything.”

“She wants your cock almost as much as I do, Edge.”

“This is how he loves to be sucked.”

“Wanna kiss you as you take her.”

I shook these thoughts away and returned to your concerned face. “I like girls,” I said, kissing your neck. “I think I just fall in love with the person, and it doesn’t matter to me....”

“I think I do, too.” Your unbuttoned my shirt and slipped a hand inside. “I saw you kiss her when we left Dublin, you know.”

“You were busy with Ali.”

“But my eyes were open, and I was watching you the entire time.” You yawned again.

“Maybe you should close your eyes, baby,” I said, touching your eyebrow. “Get some sleep if you can.”

We reclined our seats as far as possible, which is to say not much, and cuddled beneath an old green blanket I used to have on my bed when I was a child. I drifted in and out of sleep, and in one of my dreams I was running, easily and swiftly without ever getting winded, almost flying, in fact, when I felt your lips on my cheek. I heard you sniff. Were you crying?

“B?”

“You looked sad."

"I think I have one of those faces that looks sad more often than not,” I said groggily.

"Not when you're with me.” I leaned into your hand as you stroked my hair and cheek and softly recited a lyric from a Springsteen song: “ _There's a sadness hidden in that pretty face / a sadness all his own / from which no man can keep my Edge safe._ ” The next line was _We kiss_ , so we kissed the way we sometimes did in the middle of the night: grateful to even know each other and in love with our own love.

“I'll be okay,” I said. “I promise. It's just the girls. Ali's not gonna make it hard for me. And I like Aislinn. We're similar in a lot of ways.”

“You are. You’ll have fun with her. Just, you know, as a tip? If you want to, ehm, experiment, all you have to do is ask her what she likes, and she’ll ask you what you like.”

_I like her._

_But I love you._

The week flew by—all of our time in America was a blur to me—and the girls arrived. We were finishing our brief sound check when they walked into The Decade, which was a small, forgettable club, looking like Ireland’s answer to _Charlie’s Angels._

“They’re here!” you shouted, noticing them first. “Welcome to Pittsburgh, the Sligo of the USA, girls!” You bounded down from the stage, took a squealing Ali (the quiet, beautiful one) in your arms, and spun her around. Larry wasted no time either, and he raced down to embrace Ann (the blonde bombshell). I followed them and gave Aislinn (the smart, interesting one) a long hug, and the six of us laughed at the novelty of all of us being together on a random Tuesday in a third-tier city in America. 

“ _I was talking / I was talking to myself_ ,” Adam sang in a tuneless way while accompanying himself on his bass.

“Our new song!” you announced to the girls. “Isn’t it incredible? Adam! We need to get you a girl, too!”

“Who says I haven’t been getting...just...so many girls?” he said slyly to our laughs. Larry whistled and I applauded.

“I’ve been loving the postcards,” Aislinn told me with a smile. She took my hand—hers felt like a porcelain doll’s compared to yours.

“I hope they’ve been appropriately stupid.”

“They could not have been stupider, Edge.”

I wasn’t sure if I should kiss her or not—I glanced over at you and Ali, and you were of course kissing—and decided that yes, I wanted to do that, too.

We studied each other for a few seconds. The neck and sleeves of her Devo t-shirt had been cut away, revealing lovely expanses of skin, and her sleek, jet black hair was short as a boy’s. Paired with her huge eyes and long, slender neck, her hair made her resemble an ethereal space alien. I admired her for not conforming to the predictable beauty standards that seemed to repress and stifle most young women. 

“May I kiss you?” I asked.

“I’d like that.”

Pretty rebel girl...her nose was the opposite of yours. Everything about her was delicate except for her eyes. My head seemed enormous next to hers. We’d known each other for years, of course, but I realized that she must have been doing the same thing to me as I was doing to her: comparing and evaluating, and how could we not? Her grinning lips tasted like synthetic pineapple and were perfectly soft. I glanced down at actual cleavage pressed against my chest. I couldn’t stop myself from running my finger across her spiky fringe. It reminded me of a serrated knife.

“It’s not too short, is it?”

“It’s gorgeous.”

“Really?”

“You’re the coolest girl in the world.”

She laughed. “I had it cut on a dare. Diane thought it would be—” 

You interrupted us by giving me a quick tap on the shoulder. “We should go back. They’re…” You pointed to the people starting to enter the club.

“Sure, B.”

Steve Lillywhite was joking with Adam and Paul backstage, and everyone was in high spirits leading up to and during our concert. You were the life of the party onstage, clearly aiming to impress our guests, and you dedicated _An Cat Dubh_ to “our girlfriends, who came all the way from Dublin to be here tonight.” This received cheers and a few heartbroken boos. You flirted with Adam and especially me whenever the mood struck you. The two of us made ourselves scarce in a dark corner for ten breathless seconds just before the encore.

“You,” you panted into my ear as you grabbed me by the neck. 

“You.” I pulled your shirt up and drew my hand up your hot, slick torso. Skin, hair, muscles, heartbeat.

“It’s you; it’ll always be you.”

“You, baby.” You were quickly becoming aroused. Good. So was I.

“It’s you.”

“You.”

Right before my _Out Of Control_ solo, someone in the audience squirted you in the chest with a water gun. You convinced him to toss it to you, and you ran behind a curtain to soak a laughing Steve with it. Since it would be a while before our next gig, we played _I Will Follow_ a second time. And then a third time.

*

“I’m going to guess that everyone here except for Adam and Paul is suddenly extremely tired,” Steve observed as the girls cheered for us in the club’s little green room. You made some kind of knowing remark about how east-to-west transatlantic flights were especially exhausting, and we really should put our guests’ needs first. “Sure, B,” Adam said, grinning, and he stole a glance at me as if to say, “You okay?” I nodded, and he patted me on the back.

We returned with them to our unremarkable hotel. Ann and Larry vaporized. Ali had reserved a couple of extra rooms to ensure privacy for everyone involved, and before we knew it, you and I were saying goodnight in the elevator and looking back at each other as we walked in opposite directions down the hall. “I love you,” you mouthed to me, and I smiled at you, and then I was in a barebones American hotel room with Aislinn.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

She held up a finger and walked to the wall near the room’s only bed. “Just curious: how do they pick the art for hotels? Because this stuff…” she said, scrutinizing an insipid, faded print of daisies with metallic gold centers, “is aggressively below average.”

“Bono and I like to give star ratings to hotel art,” I said, wondering if it was rude to bring you up so soon. “This is a two-star picture. I’ve seen way worse.”

She blushed, and it made her face even more beautiful. “I wanna say, Edge, that there’s no pressure for us to do anything, okay?”

“Okay. But I want you to know I’m really glad you’re here.”

“I just wanted to see you, and Ali and Ann wanted me to come along because...I dunno, they’re shy and kind of scared about traveling so far, and they seem to think I’m worldly or something. We’ve become a little closer since you left because—well, you know. This band is like a family.”

“It kind of is. Good job getting them here.” _Ali had no problem navigating London, but it’s fine,_ I thought.

She opened her suitcase and retrieved some cassettes from the chaos inside. “Wanna listen to some music? I’d love to show you what I'm up to.”

“That sounds great.” I unzipped my bag and pulled out my tape recorder. 

As I was rewinding one of her tapes ( _Talk Talk Talk_ by The Psychedelic Furs), Aislinn touched my hand and said, “We’re just...spending some time together.” 

“That’s all I’m expecting. No pressure.”

She walked into the bathroom and frowned at her reflection in the mirror—I would be sharing a bathroom with her, I realized with a bit of dismay. She rubbed at the glittery eyeshadow that had settled into the creases of her eyelids.

“And you’re probably also here to see some kind of tropical island?” I asked.

“Right?”

“I truly can’t believe we’ll be in Nassau tomorrow.”

“I can’t either! The life you lead is positively surreal.” She pulled a small portfolio from her suitcase and sat on the bed. Arranging pillows behind her back and leaning against the headboard, she said, “But, Edge? One last thing? I wouldn’t be sad if...things happen.”

I turned on the light by the bed and sat beside her. “Maybe we can just, ehm, play it by ear?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s good because I still have trouble reading sheet music.”

“It’s all up there in that great big brain of yours, isn’t it?”

“Here’s hoping.” I nudged her portfolio. “So what do you have here?”

She grinned excitedly and showed me some kind of magazine. “Edge. I have a side gig! They’re paying me to write about music!” 

I looked at the cover. “Dublin A&E?”

“Arts and entertainment. It used to be one of those free coupon newspaper things? Diane—she’s my new friend—her grandfather owns it, and she convinced him to let her turn the coupon thing into something you’d actually want to read.”

“Nice.”

She flipped through one and landed on a record review for _Ghost In The Machine_ by The Police with her byline. Next to it was a dead-on, black and white illustration of the band with _AO’S_ in the lower right corner. “So I do one of these every couple of weeks.”

“Wow, Aislinn!”

She beamed. “Dream job, seriously. It doesn’t pay much, but it’s totally fun.”

“When did this happen?”

“Well, after you guys left in January, I got bored at Sound Cellar, so I put together a window display for Grace Jones. It was just something to do, and she’s fun to draw. Then I’ve got these regulars who come in and ask me what’s new, what’s good, so I decided to make a display with my picks on it. And I wrote some little blurbs about albums I liked. One day this girl came in, and she wanted to know who did the Grace Jones window. I told her it was me, and if she wanted to buy _Nightclubbing_ , it was with my picks. She took a look at them and said, “Wait, you write, too?” Guilty. Anyway, that was Diane, and long story short, I write about music for Dublin A&E now. Reviews and band profiles and things like that. She does movies, we have a TV guy, a book woman, a photographer, and there’s this Trinity professor who covers art, theater...whatever he wants.”

“How exciting, and good for you!” I put my arm around her and gave her a side-hug. “I wanna see more.”

She let out a pleased little murmur and showed me some of her other work—the illustrations were unique and increasingly confident, and I looked forward to reading what she had to say. I praised her and asked her questions, and she answered them with humor and humility. I kissed her cheek, and she leaned into me.

“It’s actually a working vacation for me, too,” she said, stifling a yawn and glancing at her fuschia-painted toenails. “I was wondering if I could do a story about your new single, and maybe interview you a little…?”

“Only if you promise to draw me, too.”

“How about now? I had this idea for you and I want to get a quick version of it onto the paper to see if it’s even gonna work.”

“Sure, but I can’t imagine that I look like anyone worth drawing after our show.”

“You may be a little worse for wear, but nothing’s gonna change”— she positioned her hands in shifting angles around my head—“this amazing thing.”

I watched her with interest as she began to draw me on her sketch pad. She studied my face and smiled. “This reminds me of the day we met.”

That art class seemed like a lifetime ago. “You could use that old drawing of me if you still have it.”

She shook her head. “No, because you’ve changed. You’re not that shy boy anymore. You’ve got the same angles, but there’s some substance backing them up now. I don’t feel like I could beat you in a fight anymore.”

I laughed. “Oh, but you did before?” 

“I could’ve kicked your arse.”

“This is shocking news. That you’d even consider—” I tossed a pillow at her, and she shrieked. “You’ve changed, too, you know.”

Rolling her eyes, she said, “Yeah, I was such a bitch back then. Christ, what was my problem?”

“You were in a new school, and you missed your friends. No one could blame you for being a little standoffish.”

“Chilly.”

“I prefer cool.”

She showed me her loose drawing of me and traced her finger over a line that was unmistakably my left cheekbone. “This. Unreal.” Lightly running her pencil over the same line on my actual face, she said, “And you are so handsome. Look at you.” 

We stared at each other for a moment; something was happening. I took her pencil and carefully outlined her lips. “Look at you.”

She lowered her eyes. “Just...I keep thinking about January, right before you left. Do you ever think about me, Edge?”

“Of course I do.”

Once again, her mouth felt different from yours, but different in a good way. You were two completely different people, and I began to realize that it was unfair and also impossible to compare you. Both of you were beautiful. Your beauty didn’t diminish hers, and her beauty didn’t diminish yours. She was a rose, and you were an orchid.

I nuzzled her downy cheek with my nose and whispered, “You must be so tired, after that long flight.”

“I took a nap on the plane, but you’re right. I have no idea what time it is.”

I nodded. “Same here. I need to take a shower.”

“Let me brush my teeth and stuff first, okay?”

“Sure.”

As she got ready for bed, I chuckled at her Police review: “The protagonist of _Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic_ is too frightened to tell a woman that he loves her, and I’m sorry if I don’t believe that you have problems getting women, Sting.”

Aislinn was asleep on what I considered to be my side of the bed when I returned from my shower, where I tried to comprehend the idea of sleeping with a girl, and what I would do if she did X, and what I would do if she did Y, and so on. I slipped between the bleachy sheets in my underwear, figuring that the next day we would be on a beach, and she’d see me in essentially the same amount of clothing then. She apparently had the same idea and might as well have been wearing a black bikini. I turned off the lamp.

“You smell nice,” she said softly with her back turned to me.

I kissed her shoulder. “Good night, Aislinn,” I whispered, and she hummed with pleasure.

“See you in the morning,” she murmured.

We migrated closer to each other during the wee hours. I became aware of her breathing and the occasional girlish coo she made as she shifted from one sleeping position to another. But for the most part, she was calm and motionless, unlike you, my darling blanket stealer, my beloved space-encroacher.

Feeling the need to touch her, but unsure about what I should do, I found myself wanting to ask your opinion, which was bizarre and inappropriate. But there you were, inside my head and whispering to me.

_You should touch her, love._

Where?

_Any place you’ve already touched her, how about that?_

I guess.

_If she was fine with it then, she should be fine with it now. What? Where do you want to touch her?_

Her waist. Where it curves in.

_Such a beautiful shape on a girl. Have you touched it before, Edge?_

Kind of? One time she was walking through a doorway, and I touched the small of her back for a second? Does that count?

_I think it might count. Touch the small of her back and see what she does. Are your hands cold?_

No. Is this weird?

_It’s not weird for me if it’s not weird for you. How are you, Edge?_

I miss you.

_I miss you, too._

Okay.

_You know where to find me if you need me._

Taking a deep breath and closing my eyes, I touched her shoulder blade—gently but not too gently, because sometimes people are ticklish. No response. I lingered for a bit and worked my way down. A low moan!

“Hi,” she said quietly.

“Hi. Is this okay?”

“Yes.”

“I woke up thinking about the curve of your waist.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Can I?”

_May I?_

You.

“Yes.”

A thousand images from art, from movies, from magazines, from comic books, from local girls I’d studied from afar—all of them became real when my hand settled into that impossibly deep curve, and it was interrupted by the equally impossible swell of a hip. Her hip. Aislinn’s hip.

_Say something._

“This curve is a miracle.”

I could hear the smile in her voice when she sighed, “Edge.”

“Aislinn.”

She moved back until I was spooning her and kissing the nape of her neck. This made her delightfully squirmy, and her buzzed-but-soft hair made me experience a delicious confusion I had no choice but to welcome. And that’s all we did that morning. As much as I wanted to explore and learn, I knew I needed to be patient. It certainly worked with you.

Eventually we got out of bed and looked out the window at predawn Pittsburgh. “Three rivers meet down there,” I said, trying to pretend that women standing beside me in their underwear was a daily occurrence and not mind-shattering at all.

“Look at all the bridges,” she said, glancing left and right. 

“It’s actually an underrated city.” I didn’t know if it was or not.

“Not the Sligo of America?”

“Maybe it’s more like Derry. But Sligo is a funnier word.”

We watched the sparse traffic and the dramatic pink and red clouds in the east. She took my hand and said, “I’m always gonna be fine with you and Bono.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m a little jealous of him. But I know you need each other.”

This was the kind of conversation I tended to have in the dark, so she scored some points with me for bringing it up when she did. “It’s such a strange situation,” I said. “If you don’t feel like you want to—”

“No. It’s good. You’ve always been so forthcoming about it. You trust me, and that’s a big deal. And I know what it’s like, kind of.”

“Kind of?”

She bit her lip. “I’ll...can I explain later?”

“Of course.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready—”

“That’s fine.”

Wondering what she could have meant by that, I kissed her forehead, and she smiled at me. I thought about what you and Ali might be doing and immediately put it out of my mind. We were supposed to leave at—

“Anything else I can bring you?” asked the kindly woman who seemed to be the owner of the coffee shop. 

I closed my journal. “No, thanks. I should probably get going.”

“I’ve never seen a lad so lost in thought.”

“Yeah. I’ve got a lot of things to figure out.”

She winked. “Follow your heart, love.”

My plans with Aislinn were kind of loose—I’d show up at the record store sometime during her shift and we’d catch up for a bit. The sidewalk was clogged with pedestrians enjoying the afternoon’s golden sunlight. Sound Cellar’s window was a multimedia extravaganza devoted to The Go-Go’s, and _How Much More_ could be heard through the open door. I felt a quick pang of longing for my aunt’s corgi and walked inside.

“There he is!” Aislinn squealed, leaving her post at the cash register and running over to me.

“There she is!” I shouted as she tackled me in her petite embrace.

“Christ, I’ve missed you so much!” she said, bubbling over with glee.

“Look at you,” I said, taking in her smashing black jumpsuit and masses of neon-colored jewelry. “Now I know what everyone will be wearing next year.”

“Try 1984. Come with me,” she said with a grin as she led me to the stockroom. “I don’t have much time. Liam? Take over!”

“Am I late?”

“Eh, change of plans—production night at the paper is now production afternoon. Look what I’ve done with your postcards!” They were taped to the stockroom door’s window in neat rows under a sign that said _Postcards From The Edge_ with a drawing of me playing my Explorer. “This way you can see both sides,” she said, opening and closing the door to demonstrate.

“You nut,” I said with a chuckle while admiring her pale shoulders and neck.

She pulled me into a deep, sexy kiss that ended with laughter from both of us. Backing up to a disorganized desk, she retrieved a few issues of Dublin A&E with an Aislinn-drawn U2 on the cover. We were surrounded by palm trees and ocean waves that resembled fire. “You’re on page 20,” she said, handing them to me. I turned the pages and found her illustration of me with trippy and similarly tropical motifs. “You’ve made me look way too cool.”

“Not a chance.”

“C’mere.” I held her close, looked into her eyes, and wished I could absorb her happiness. “You couldn’t be more beautiful if you tried.”

“Aww.” She pressed her cheek to mine.

“Little update,” I said, immediately feeling stupid for putting it that way. “Since you’re in a hurry...well, Bono asked Ali to marry him.”

“Oh!...Did she say yes?”

“Her reaction was more like ‘probably, _but_...’ than ‘yes,’ but you know it’s a yes. Next summer at the earliest, if it happens. It’s gonna happen.”

She regarded me tenderly. “Fuck. Are you alright?”

“I’m in a weird place, I’ve gotta say. I asked Bono to give me some time to figure things out. If I can.”

“Wait. You guys are taking a break?”

“For some, you know, perspective.”

“Huh. Okay. Do you wanna talk? Should I cancel this thing with the paper? Because maybe I could—”

“Oh, no. Please don’t.”

Embracing me tightly, she said, “Well, I want you to know you can call me anytime.”

“I will.” I kissed the side of her neck. I simply had to, and I heard that gratifyingly low moan of hers.

Her fingers fumbled with the top button of my shirt. “And I’d like to see you whenever you feel like it, and maybe we can, ehm, you know…”

“I totally know.” I kissed her again. Exquisite heat.

Someone knocked on the door. “One second, Liam!” she yelled. “Jesus Christ. Sorry. They must be here—Diane and the guy who writes about TV.” 

“Ooh, do I finally get to meet the famous Diane?”

“Looks like it,” she said, fretting a bit, and then brightening, she opened the door. “Diane! Finn. This is The Edge.”

“The famous Edge!”

Diane was around my height, with intense brown eyes that were almost black, chestnut hair tied into a low ponytail, classic, subdued clothing that implied old money...and a big, bright smile. I shook hands with her and Finn. “This girl is a godsend,” Diane told me.

“Yes. And a true original.”

We continued to size each other up while engaging in obligatory, first-meeting chit chat, and I’d like to think each of us concluded, “Yeah. I see the appeal.” Because I did. I saw the appeal in anyone who appreciated Aislinn.

*

I returned to the apartment and was just about to read her interview with me when I found another note from you in the mail. My automatic _Bono first_ response was triggered—no matter what would happen to me in my life, you would always be first. Same envelope as last time, same sheets of paper torn from a composition book...I held it to my face for a moment, inhaled, and read.

_Edge._

_Beloved._

_I learned so much about you while we were on tour. It’s bound to happen in any travel situation, and over the past year, we’ve traveled enough to last multiple lifetimes. We’ve seen more of America than most Americans ever do. You’re not even 20 yet._

_I watched you with great interest all year, with eyes filled with lust, of course, _obviously_ , but also with wonder. Each day seemed to reveal something new and beautiful about my lover, my best friend._

_I watched you step away from the bus to walk into a cornfield that was beginning to sprout, just so you could examine the tender and bright green leaves._

_I watched you draw the nauseating, triangles-amidst-swooshes pattern on the plush bus seats, I assume so you would have an accurate record of it for some mysterious future use._

_I watched you push back the cuticles on each of your fingers with your thumbnails in the same careful and precise manner so many times that I began doing it that way myself._

_I watched you approach virtually any food item with a systematic plan of attack that resulted in the final bite being the best one._

_I watched you stalk and capture a praying mantis, which you set on an oak leaf. You drew it in your sketchbook while the rest of us attempted to throw an American football in a spiral._

_I watched you look up from your book and gaze into the middle distance for minutes at a time, contemplating whatever it is a man with your kind of mind would contemplate, and then return to the same spot in your book, which you had marked with your right index finger._

_I watched you stare at mile upon mile of flat, unremarkable landscapes as if they were sending you important messages or recharging your batteries._

_I watched you move across the aisle to sit beside Larry, who was homesick and on the verge of tears. “Fookin’ Eagles,” he said, indicating the tinny bus speaker that was playing_ Take It To The Limit _. (Incidentally, isn’t it adorable how our drummer has a soft spot for them?) “The radio’s been playing them into the ground, but those hooks are undeniable,” you said, putting your arm around him. “It’s actually infuriating.” This got a smile out of Larry, and you told him that you got homesick too, and the number of people we dealt with on any given day exhausted you, and this amount of travel could be visually draining but no one ever talks about it, and when we managed to get hotel rooms, sometimes you didn’t want to leave them for any reason. The two of you talked about home for a long time—places you missed, things you wanted to do as soon as we got back—and I listened to all of it with tears in my eyes. My love. I had an inkling, but I guess I hadn’t realized how hard it could be for you (and Larry as well), and how the thing we are driven to do goes against your nature, or at least part of it. Yet you do it—and I hope with all my heart that you will continue to do it—with me._

_I can’t do it without you, Edge. I just can’t._

_I love you,  
B._


	5. Fire and Ash

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long chapter with a lot of moving parts, and maybe you noticed that a new category has been added up top: F/F. Also there is a significant amount of M/F here, so I hope that doesn't alienate some of you. But the real U2s have wives, and this is my attempt to acknowledge that and have Aislinn make sense as a partner for Edge. I fully admit that my version of Aislinn is 99% made up. It has to be because so little information is available about her. So I have attempted to make her as awesome as possible. And you M/M people will get a big fun scene at the end if you're patient. :)
> 
> ISSUES!
> 
> * Their reason for going to Nassau is real and the girls were there, too.  
> * The red shorts in question were seen in a photo I have committed to memory but somehow cannot find online. It's the one where Edge and Larry stand over a reclining Bono on the beach. Edge is taking photos. All are wearing Speedos. Why this photo isn't readily available when performing a google image search involving any of the above nouns is ANYONE'S GUESS. Do you have such a photo?? Can you send me a link in the comments? Pretty please?  
> EDIT: WE NOW HAVE THE PICTURE! THANK YOU YUMPORCHETTA ON THE TUMBLAH!! Edge doesn't have a camera in this pic. I THOUGHT HE DID! oh well, perhaps he is storing it in his speedo for safekeeping haaaaaa I'm sorry.  
> * Bono is the voice inside Edge's head because that is a thing I like to do. So amidst the hetero, please know that imaginary Bono is observing and cracking wise.  
> * Throughout the first half (2/3?) of the chapter, I've put chunks of Aislinn's interview with Edge. All of this is made up.  
> * I've listened to a Spotify playlist of 1981's top 100 songs while writing this, and it shows.  
> * I really hope I haven't made a lot of typos here and italics weirdness. If so, forgive. All of this was written in about a week.  
> * Some of us have a thing for turtlenecks, I dunno.  
> * The Limerick references: they're talking about what happened in Chapter 9 of Fictitious Characters. Please check it out and take care of yourself.
> 
> Thanks to Miss Ella for encouraging me. I don't know what I'd do without you. xoxo

_Dear Edge,_

_Ask and ye shall receive._

_Love, Bono_

_——-_

_Dear Bono,_

_Oh, did you ever deliver, baby. Thank you. We leave for Eze in an hour._

_Love, Edge_

———————-

_“When the sand’s dry, it feels like you’re walking on granulated sugar. No rocks or pebbles,” says U2 guitarist The Edge, clad in black swimming shorts as he explores Nassau’s pristine white beach. The band are in the Bahamas on a working vacation (nice work if you can get it). As they record their upcoming single, _Fire,_ the boys occasionally pop outside for surf, sand, and sunburn. _

_“Then as you approach the water, it’s more like a really dense cake that’s crumbling beneath your feet when you step on it,” he continues. “And these waves are nothing like the Irish Sea. Turquoise versus gunmetal.”_

“Christ, will I never shut up about the beach?” I muttered. Eager to read Aislinn’s interview with me and unable to wait until after I saw my parents, who were planning a celebratory supper for me, I sat on a bench in Malahide Park with her newspaper/magazine. I had folded its cover around the back pages so the clusters of young people playing soccer nearby wouldn’t catch me reading it. _Paranoid much?_ , I thought, rolling my eyes at myself.

Fire _is a propulsive rocker that conjures up the End Times. Destroyed versions of the sun, moon, and stars fall upon poor little Bono. “I think he’s been wrestling with a couple of demons, possibly angels, but you’d never know it,” says Edge, lifting his chin toward his shrieking friend as he frolics in the ocean with Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr._

While we had agreed to focus on Ali and Aislinn while they were with us, your body in those tight red swimming shorts kept me in a near-constant state of arousal whenever I saw you. You even wore them into the studio, usually remembering to toss on an unbuttoned shirt over your too-rosy shoulders and chest. Your eyebrows and locks of your hair became slightly sunbleached that week--I was probably the only one who noticed--while the rest of the colors of your body only seemed to intensify. _There’s a fire in me_ , your voice repeated in my head--none of us could wrench that new song from our minds while we were there. Yes, there was a fire in you, and all over you, and I yearned to take you somewhere, anywhere, strip you naked, and have my way with you.

_When asked what it’s like to be an Irish manchild touring America, Edge becomes animated, clearly awestruck by what he has seen._

_“The diversity of the landscape is truly stupefying: mountains, prairies, forests, deserts. We’ve played in cities we’ve only seen in movies, and in between them is this ever-changing terrain, often just a blur in the darkness. One morning we woke up while our bus trundled through an actual blizzard, and when we went to sleep, it was springtime in Texas. If anyone wants to see the polar opposite of Ireland, they need to visit the American southwest. North America is a proper continent, and you have no idea how massive it is until you drive across it. Ireland is the size of one of the states, and it’s not even a big one. I took it upon myself to memorize the states and their capitals, which I think you’re supposed to learn when you’re ten there.”_

Geek.

Ali, Aislinn, and Ann went sightseeing while we worked on _Fire_. Steve kept the mood light and breezy, and he was as motivated as we were to record good takes because that meant more beach time for all of us. We were eager to return to the studio with him, especially me. I loved his creative process and its emphasis on invention and experimentation while remaining focused. I stayed in the studio when you recorded your vocals, mainly because it gave me a chance to openly stare at you through the studio window, as if I had anything to contribute beyond _That was really good, B._ You stuck around for my parts as well, and your searing eyes melted the glass between us. The song came together with relative ease.

The girls returned in the late afternoons when the sun was not as fierce, and the line between childhood and adulthood blurred for all of us. In perpetual disbelief with our paradisal surroundings, we played in the waves, gaped at the palm trees, and started some half-baked sandcastles while in various states of undress. We stared at the girls, they stared at us, and you and I stared at each other. We reminded ourselves not to stare, and then we stared some more. 

Ali wore a demure one-piece swimsuit, and she wrapped a hotel towel around her hips. This was eventually replaced with an oversized floral scarf she found in one of the touristy shops near the hotel. Aislinn donned a string bikini with a matching black fishnet dress. While Ali’s figure was still rather girlish, Aislinn was clearly a woman with the kind of curves I used to fantasize about in the faraway days before you entered my world. 

Wisely avoiding our love quadrilateral, or maybe trapezoid was a better word for it, Larry and Ann discovered a beachside cantina that was a short walk from our hotel, and Adam discovered a lovely bartender there with a hairstyle that rivaled his in terms of volume and bounce. Interestingly enough, when he was nowhere to be found, neither was she.

_What are American fans like, The Edge?_

_“People are just starting to discover our music over there, and some are more receptive to it than others, of course. Americans are kind of cute because everyone feels the need to tell us how much Irish they have in them.The big cities are harder to win over than the smaller ones in the middle of the country. Those are mostly college towns, and a lot of times the students there are happy to have some entertainment, any entertainment. They’re just kids having fun on a school night, and unlike what we’ve seen in London, for example, they’re not too cool for us.”_

_And how is the single coming along?_

_“It’s been our easiest time in the studio to date, but the beauty of this location couldn’t be more distracting,” Edge says, frowning at his sunburnt shoulder. “The pace of our tour has caught up with us, and we’re grateful for the break. I feel like I could sit here and watch the waves for the rest of 1981, but at the same time, ideas for new songs keep hatching, and I’m driven to turn them into something real.”_

Each night in our room, a slow, physical escalation continued between Aislinn and me. We didn’t adopt the snail’s pace with which you and I had tortured each other, but we were determined to stay on our own timetable and not conform to yours and Ali’s. 

“I can’t wait to get out of this thing and take a shower,” Aislinn said one night, shimmying and freeing herself from her fishnet dress and pulling at her bikini as I set the key on the desk. We were both a little buzzed on pina coladas and mojitos. “The sand, I swear…”

“Please, keep it on for just another minute or two,” I said, turning to her. “You are so beautiful.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ve been wanting to do this all night--to just look at you. Really look at you.” She shrugged and smiled bashfully as my eyes traveled down her body and up again. “That’s not weird, is it?’

“No. Does Bono think it’s weird?”

“He quite likes it.”

“I’m sure he does.”

I glanced at our reflection in the mirror by the door. My head seemed tragicomically enormous alongside hers. I took her in my arms and kissed her.

 _It’s fair, it’s symmetrical, and I’m doing it, too,_ your voice reminded me. _Touch them. You know you want to._

I slid a finger up her bare ribcage. It left goosebumps in its wake. “Do you mind if I…? Please.”

“I want you to, Edge,” she said. I watched in disbelief as my hand cupped her right breast, and together we gasped with pleasure. “You’ve never done this with a girl, have you?”

I shook my head. 

“Then tonight is special.”

“It is.”

She pulled my other hand up… _symmetrical_...and my head tipped back automatically. As I studied the ceiling (Jackson Pollock-like, if he used white paint only), she kissed my neck, and my hands shot page after page of raw data up to my brain: impossibly soft, heavier than I thought, warm, living, responding, irresistible, real.

I lowered my chin and kissed her temple, eyebrow, and cheekbone, and whispered, “Ash.” Not exactly original, but--

“Ash...I like that.”

We took turns showering and reconvened in bed, still wearing underwear but becoming more comfortable with each other in the dim moonlight. My lips moved down her neck and past her pretty clavicle until, awestruck, I found myself kissing goddess-caliber cleavage. I pushed away the mental image of early embryonic cells dividing in two, then four, then eight, although I always liked watching animations of that process...no. 

_Breasts. Two of them. Beautiful ones, right in front of you, Edge, lucky you. Can you believe it?_

Not really.

_And she smells so good, doesn’t she?_

Like soap but like…

_A girl. A woman._

I nuzzled the deep line between them, closed my eyes, and there it was, her heartbeat. Eventually my hands remembered that they could do things, too. Meanwhile Aislinn stroked my hair and whispered gentle, affectionate phrases.

“What’s it like to live in a body with these?” I asked, gazing up at her. “How do you manage to accomplish anything at all?”

“When you really think about what they are, it’s strange to imagine that breasts can be desirable to anyone. These two round, fatty things stuck onto a chest...? And milk comes out of them? The human body is so weird.”

“It really is. But they are sexy. Even when they’re only partly exposed like this. Why is that?”

“Why is anything sexy? It just is. Maybe somebody liked looking at catalogs when he was a boy?”

I kissed her bra--lace, slightly scratchy. “Maybe.”

“Maybe don’t question why you’re attracted to something.”

“Good advice, especially for me.”

“Me, too.” She smiled down at me. “Get back up here. My turn.” We switched positions, and she said, “I happen to like your chest, too.”

I lifted her chin with my fingertip and said, “Wait. Why is that good advice for you?”

She paused and hid her face against my shoulder for a moment. “I think you know.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Diane? The girl who started the paper? We...do things together. Not everything, but some things.”

I kissed the top of her head, and the cropped ends of her hair felt like the tips of paint brushes stroking my lips. “I know that was hard to say.”

She kissed the back of my hand and played with my fingers. “The production office is way out in Blackrock, and when we put the paper together, we’re in there past midnight. I’m part of a fun crew that lays out the galleys. It’s a lot of cut and paste stuff, and I really get into it because it’s sort of a race against time, and everyone helps each other. The stereo’s playing, and we’re hopped up on caffeine and making something we’re actually proud of. It’s such a rush when we wrap up an issue. Best job I’ve ever had.”

“Cool.”

“You should come and watch us! Anyway, we’re all on equal footing, but Diane is sort of the ringleader, and after we delivered the galleys to the printer the last few times, she’s asked me to stay overnight with her.”

“Which you’ve been doing.”

“Which I’ve been doing. Because of safety.”

“Of course.”

Aislinn played with my chest hair the way Bond girls do when they sleep with Sean Connery. She sighed dreamily. “She’s so pretty, Edge, in that dark and kind of quiet way that you don’t see coming. And she loves my work. The first night I was there, taping a skinny black border around a page and pretending to know what I was doing, she stopped by to watch me, and when I was done, she touched my hand. I kind of let her know that it was okay.”

“And then things escalated?”

“Yeah. Don’t you love it when things escalate?”

“When it clicks? Nothing is better.” I was already turned on, but the idea of Aislinn with another pretty girl intensified my need to kiss the soft, warm curves of her breasts again, so we shifted in bed one more time. I didn’t mind the idea of her with Diane, and I wasn’t jealous, because it was fair, it was symmetrical, and I was doing it too, with you.

_Oh, Edge._

Are you watching this?

_I am positively transfixed._

“Oh, Edge.” I felt her hands move across my back, and her legs intertwined with mine. “Well. We’d go to her place, and it’s exquisite and spacious but usually kind of cold because she’s away all day and night. And you know me. I’m rarely dressed for the weather. But--I’m sorry, I’ll speed through this—

“No, don’t. Take your time. I’m...really interested.”

_Oh, you’re incredibly interested. Poor chilly Aislinn. What to do, Diane, what to do…_

We can’t leave her shivering like that in her little dress, B.

_Perish the thought._

“Okay. Well, it takes some time to come down after getting the paper out, so we like to huddle under a blanket and watch old movies on her couch and talk about the new issue, you know, and...I’m sure you can imagine.”

“One thing leads to another.” 

“And honestly, Edge, you were in America for months and months, and I was lonely and sad because of the gloom and the damp and every day feeling the same. But there she was full of praise for my creative work, which really meant a lot to me. We were making something together.”

“It’s like Bono and me, writing songs.”

“Exactly like that. And the way the two of you are together made Diane and me seem less unusual in my mind. Hand touching became hand holding, and then hugs, and arms around shoulders, and little pecks on the cheek. I was curious, and it just...made sense to me?”

“Yeah, when you stop hearing what you imagine other people might say, you think, _What’s keeping me from being with him? With her?_ ” She rolled onto her side, and I would have happily suffocated beneath the weight of her top breast.

“When we’re cuddling together in bed, it feels so safe and warm and good. And what you’re doing to me? Right now? I’ve done it with her.”

“I mean—”

“It’s so sexy. Breasts? I get it.”

“Do you do this?” I asked, sucking her nipple through the lace.

“Yes,” she moaned. I was seeing stars when she tilted my chin up, and we made eye contact. “Then there’s that subversive thrill I’m sure you feel with Bono. Two boys together. Two girls together.” 

“Ash.” I kissed her neck, smooth until I reached her velvety nape.

“You and Bono are deeply in love, and you have been for a long time. So I’m not sure if this is the same for you. Maybe it was in the beginning? It probably doesn’t matter. But sometimes I don’t know if I want her or if I just want to be her. You know?”

“Wow. Yeah. It’s a really special kind of admiration, and I’m not sure if it happens outside of same-sex relationships.”

“Like, I admire you, Edge, and sometimes I think it’d be fun to be you, sure, but she’s different. Being her is somehow more achievable than being you because we’re both girls. Does this make any sense?”

“Yes.” I took her face in my hands and kissed her lips, thinking, _She understands me because she is actually just like me_.

“She gave me a nickname.”

“What’s that?”

“Pixie. Sometimes Pix. I’d give you a nickname, but I can’t think of anything better than Edge.”

“Sometimes Bono absolutely nails it. What do you call Diane?”

Her dreamy little tongue slid over mine. “She hates her real name, but she likes it when I call her baby.”

“Oh my god.”

“Do you call him baby, too?”

I nodded and started laughing, and so did she, and in that moment, everything felt right.

*

_Does the band feel pressured by Island Records to deliver a hit?_

_“U2 is pressuring U2 to deliver a hit more than anyone else. We’re fortunate because Island is giving us time to grow as a band and grow up in general. We’re still just kids, really. Particularly Larry. We all deal with homesickness from time to time. Bono and Adam feel it the least, but Larry and I feel it the most."_

_It’s probably hard to be too lonely when you’re cultivating an audience, though, right?_

_“Well, geeky male fans tend to gravitate toward me more than the others, and they want to know about my gear and how I get my guitar to sound the way it does, so it’s not especially glamorous. Meanwhile Larry and Adam get to talk to the pretty girls, and Bono gets everyone. And who can blame them? His magnetism and gifts as a performer just keep growing, and I think Dublin will be impressed with him the next time we play. It’s been a privilege to watch him evolve night after night. Most mornings I’m awakened by excitement and a kind of disbelief that propels me--propels us--despite our exhaustion. All four of us are eager to do it again."_

*

I studied the illustration. She portrayed my face so lovingly, emphasizing the parts of me she kissed the most and making me look better than I actually did. I thought about the last night the girls were with us. 

We were at the cantina again, all of us a little drunk and dancing to a mix of canned steel drum music and American top 40 songs. The scent of unfamiliar flowers and the warm sea air, the ravishing pink sunset replaced with strings of rainbow fairy lights and a sky full of stars, the always-available combination of citrus and sugar and alcohol, the tickle of sand between toes--why would anyone ever want to wear shoes again?--all of this was ours to enjoy, along with skin, beautiful young Irish skin ill-equipped for the sun but eager to soak up its warmth and take it back to gray, drizzly Dublin. The steamy, get-laid atmosphere and the un-Irelandness of it all were ever-present on this island that seemed to be free of rules and consequences.

Clumsily but unselfconsciously, we danced as a group that broke off into couples from time to time. Aislinn trotted out her respectable Tom Petty impression as I sang the Stevie Nicks lines from _Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around_. She suggested “Stevie” as a possible nickname for me, but I shut that idea down. We pretended to tango during _Bette Davis Eyes_ , and I admired her equally-formidable eyes, rimmed as always with kohl and glitter. Her pale irises reflected the party lights so well--green, blue, violet, orange, magenta.

You knew all of the words to _Jessie’s Girl_ , which had been played to death on our tour bus’s radio that spring, and you sang directly to me with a winking ambiguity that made me want to eat you alive. I gave a giggling Aislinn a quick “be right back” signal and, taking your warm, familiar hand in mine, I pulled you away from the group, led you into the shadows behind the cantina, and kissed you. Groaning, greedy you.

“Off,” you said, fumbling with the few fastened buttons on my shirt. I was more covered up than anyone else in the group, and you needed to see more. Soon we were chest to chest and mouth to mouth, our hands reclaiming things that already belonged to us. 

Your mouth was boozy and sweet. “Wanna suck you down,” I murmured, grabbing your ass as you gasped. _Fuck,_ I thought, _I want you. Nothing has changed here, nothing at all._ “Are we okay, B?”

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little jealous of her,” you said, sliding a knowing hand down the front of my shorts. You chuckled at how hard I was for you. “I didn’t expect the two of you to hit it off so completely.”

“You and Ali are thick as thieves, as usual.”

You shrugged. “Sure, but, it’s just—I don’t know…”

I understood what you were trying to say. Ali was a known commodity. The two of you had been together for almost five years and were indeed as good as married. But Aislinn and I were new. You weren’t used to watching us behave like a real couple.

“I know,” I said, pulling you close and inhaling. “But you and I will be together tomorrow night. I have plans for you.”

“Oh, do you?”

“Big plans.” You needed something blunt. I bit your earlobe and whispered, “I can’t wait to fuck you. You’ll be ready for me, won’t you, baby?”

“Yes, Edge, yes, love,” you said, losing your balance. After feeling around on the ground for my shirt, I noticed I was at eye level with your shorts, which were barely holding you inside them. I kissed you through the tight red fabric, and then it was back up to deal with your gaping mouth. Firm, decisive. Then, taking your hand, I led us back to the cantina.

Ali took me aside for a brief check-in as things began to wind down. We walked to the beach and listened to the waves, which were crashing against the shore.

“They’re kind of scary at night,” she said, running a hand through her hair, which had been cut into a style that was nearly identical to yours.

“I think so, too. When you can’t see them, they become...like some dark creature. They’re not just water anymore.” As if it wanted to live up to my claim, a big wave roared up to us, and we laughed. I looked at her pretty face, one half illuminated by party lights, and half engulfed in shadows. “Everything alright with you and B?”

She nodded. “He...will need attention.”

“Okay.”

“I mean, when is that not the case? But...at night he’s been getting up and gazing out the window in the direction of your room.”

“Ah.”

“He’s dying of curiosity, and he keeps pestering me for any progress reports that Aislinn might have shared.”

I blinked. “Has she shared much with you?”

“I know the two of you are taking your time, and I think that’s wise.” She patted my shoulder. “I’ve never seen her this happy, Edge. You’re so cute together.”

“I’m glad she’s here. Otherwise all I’d think about would be…”

“Yeah.” We could hear you off in the distance, singing REO Speedwagon’s _Keep On Loving You_ with/at Larry. We laughed and shook our heads. “He’s such a dork.”

“The two of you seem to be having plenty of fun.”

“He’s adorable as always, and we’ve finally…” she trailed off with a chuckle that ended in a gentle sigh. “It’s good. It’s lovely and romantic here. But you know how he is. He needs so much.”

“What about you?”

“I’ve always been—what’s the word—I dunno. Solitude has never been a problem for me. I crave it when I can’t have it.”

“I know the feeling.”

“He talks about you all the time. Believe me, you are never, ever far from his mind.”

And you were never, ever far from my mind when Aislinn and I spent our last night together. _Master Blaster_ by Stevie Wonder filtered into our room from the nonstop party outside, and as we talked in bed, your voice purred inside my brain. _Just remember you don’t need to do anything you’re not ready for tonight. In fact, it might be even better if you gave her something to anticipate._

Do I sense an ulterior motive there, B?

_I’m simply looking out for your best interests. But do spoon her again. What must it be like to have such a curvy backside?_

You should know.

Aislinn had been reviewing our time together those past few days and concluded, “You’re so easy to talk to, Edge, you know? I trust you.”

I put my arm around her waist and squeezed. “Last night I realized how similar we are. I’ve been thinking about that a lot today.”

“Me too. I don’t have any friends I’d feel comfortable talking about Diane with. You’re the first. And I’m sure it’s the same with you.”

I exhaled. “Well, Adam and Larry know, and so does Gill. And Ali, of course. They can usually tell if there’s a problem. But I spare them the day-to-day details.”

Looking back at me, she said, “So you don’t have anyone to compare notes with. Or to just talk about how cute he is.”

“No. Except for him.”

“And I’m sure he already knows that.”

“It’s been made crystal clear.” Her underwear matched her bra: the kind of delicate, light blue cotton you’d wrap a baby in. I played with the waistband at her hip, just to see if she minded.

_She doesn’t seem to mind, Edge._

Should I pull it down a little?

_Ask her._

“Is this okay?”

“Yes.”

I kissed her shoulder, and she reached back and touched my cheekbone.

“So tell me something about Diane,” I whispered.

She giggled. “Hmm. Okay. I love the way she looks in a turtleneck.”

“Oh. I love B in a turtleneck, too.” 

“Turtlenecks ought to be outlawed.”

“Utterly obscene the way they cling to a person’s chest.”

“Showing me everything she has like that. Who does she think she is, Catwoman?”

I laughed, and she turned around to face me. Not sure what to do with my hand, which had settled into a warm space below the small of her back, I moved it out of the way, but she put it back on her other hip.

With a wicked grin, she whispered in my ear, “How about those little red shorts of his?”

I groaned. “Do not get me started.”

“Outrageous that he thinks he can just run around like that.”

“It’s torture. It’s a human rights violation.”

“His plump little arse.”

“Everything else in there is plump, too.”

She moved down to nuzzle my stomach, saying, “You’re no better, I hope you know. I’m gonna need five hundred more words for my article about you, just so I can explain to my readers how Mr. Buttoned All The Way To The Top looks wearing next to nothing.” 

“Oh, you’re one to talk, Ms. Pale Bikini Punk Rock Goddess.” I ran my hands through her hair and resisted the strong urge to coax her mouth lower. Instead I pulled her back up, and we kissed until we were quite out of breath.

She inhaled, closed her eyes, and rested her head on my chest. “Maybe...can we just be honest with each other, Edge? No games, and no telling other people?”

“I would love that.”

“I promise I won’t tell a soul any details about you and Bono. Not even Diane.”

“I won’t tell a soul about you and Diane. But I think I should tell B that she and you are…”

She considered this. “We’re...extremely close. You can tell him that. And I understand. You’ve been in love for years, and I’m sure you tell each other everything. I just met her a few months ago.”

“Right.”

“But already she and I are, you know, extremely close.”

“I know how that goes.”

“But Christ, she runs a newspaper. So I’m not telling her about you and B. I promise. Don’t worry.”

“And for what it’s worth, Bono doesn’t need to know how much you love Diane in a turtleneck.”

“No.”

“I think this is good.”

Thrilled with this new, secret loophole that allowed us to have boyfriends and girlfriends and talk about them openly, Aislinn and I became caught up in the alluring idea that we were exceptional. Different rules applied to us. We were free.

She squirmed a bit and sighed. “Edge, I’m...I know we’re not ready for more, but I’m just so…”

I smiled. “Would you like a little privacy?”

“I think I’ll lose my mind if I don’t take care of myself.”

“Me too.”

We kissed, and I slipped out of bed and into the bathroom, where I answered her low moans with a few of my own. Then my back thudded against the wall that separated us. 

“Ash…”

*

My parents and Gill were keen to see me after I’d been away from home for so long. Mum seemed to search my face for changes, and, apparently finding a few, she wrapped me in a smiling but misty-eyed embrace. Knowing that I’d eaten nothing but road food since January, she made Welsh cawl for supper, and Gill attempted to bake a cake in the shape of my Explorer. It looked more like a bow tie on a stick, but I appreciated the effort, and I gave all of them presents: a shell necklace I bought near Zuma beach for Gill and a photo book of American cities for Mum and Dad. He flipped through the book after we ate, and I had stories to tell about most of them.

Then, all talked out, I helped Mum with the dishes. Plates, silverware, glasses, and pans brought back memories of my childhood.

“That’s a pretty scarf,” I said, pointing at her throat. She rarely wore them.

Beaming at it, she said, “It’s from Bono. He was here this morning.”

“He was?” I should have known. The scarf featured a repeating pattern of redbud branches. They weren’t native to Ireland, but we saw them everywhere in America that spring: delicate flowering trees in a startling shade of purplish pink that thrived in formal gardens and trailer parks alike. You never tired of pointing them out to me.

“He gave Gill a bottle of perfume all the girls in America like to wear. Yellow bottle? I wondered how he knew what to buy, and he said, ‘All you have to do is ask them.’”

I grinned in spite of myself. It sounded exactly like something you would say. 

She kissed my cheek. “I know about Aislinn. And Bono and Ali...and your reaction. He said you needed some time alone?”

I was at a loss for words. “I...it’s a lot.”

“He seemed distraught about it.”

“I know. I just need to think without being distracted. He’s a major distraction.”

She nodded knowingly. “I wish you could have seen his face. He needed reassurance and advice.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re his family, too. We’ve sort of adopted him, wouldn’t you say?”

I nodded and started putting the silverware away. “He adores you the most, Mum. I’m glad he felt like he could talk to you.”

“He and I took a walk and looked at the sea for a bit. We sat on some concrete blocks--he said that’s an important spot for the two of you?”

“Since 1976.”

“He loves you. He said he thinks he always has.”

I paused. “He’s the center of my life.”

Exhaling and rinsing off the last pan, she said, “It’s like one of those intense Victorian friendships you read about.”

“Oh, you read about intense Victorian friendships, do you?”

“I read about a lot of things, young man. I’m a very complex character,” she said, wiping her hands with a dish towel and adjusting her scarf in a posh way. 

I walked over to the kitchen window and looked out at the shed, the clothes line, the yard, and the garden, none of which had changed. She joined me and said quietly, “Have you ever considered this: if Bono and Ali get married--if you and Aislinn or some other girl get married, too, even--and the band continues to grow...if you were both in relationships, wouldn’t that take the focus off what’s going on between you and Bono?”

I blinked. She was probably right. “Not everyone’s as open-minded about...you know. Us.”

“I just want you to be happy. And safe. This might provide a layer of protection from people who would see you and Bono as somehow wrong.”

I shrugged.

“He says the girls don’t mind the two of you being together.”

“Miracle of miracles.”

“When you’re away, you have each other. When you’re home, you have them.”

“Is this how Victorian rock bands solved their problems?”

She put her arm around me, and I could almost see her brain writing reminders to itself to fatten me up over the summer. “Do you remember my cousin Rhys?”

“Maybe? Kind of.”

“He was one of the older cousins from Cardiff, and there are a lot of them, you know. But Rhys was different. Gifted and unusual. He had a special friend who was always...around. Elis. We knew, and we accepted it. But Rhys also had a wife and five children. And Elis was married, too. Arrangements get made, love. Things have a way of working themselves out.” I met her gaze and found myself nodding.

“I really missed you, Mum,” I said, and she hugged me in that way of hers that brought tears to my eyes.

Later I went upstairs, where the sound of an anemic piano was coming from Gill’s room. I tapped on her open door. “What’s that?”

“Graduation present,” she said, displaying the battery-operated keyboard on her lap. “I’m trying to figure out _Arthur’s Theme._ ”

“Ah. Happy graduation, by the way.”

“This is the weirdest summer ever.”

“How so?”

She shrugged. “I’m happy that school is over, but I’m nervous. Like, I did really well at Mt. Temple, but maybe when I’m at Trinity I won’t be all that special anymore.”

I sat beside her at the end of the bed. She smelled kind of like lemons and flowers, and yes, like American girls. “You’ll always be special, Gill. Can I try?”

I’d been doing my best to learn how to play piano/keyboards, and I jumped at the chance to practice whenever one was available to me while we were touring. She slid it onto my lap, and I played a few notes and had to resist the urge to sigh. Music. _Music._

“Dublin is a lot less fun without U2. I’m glad you’re back.” Raising a finger, she said, “Oh, Bono wanted me to give this to you.” It was an envelope with my name written on the front in red. I nodded at it, blushed, and began to assemble a plodding series of cords that seemed mournful but determined. She sprinkled a few high, twinkling notes on top. “He loves you,” she whispered.

*

I didn’t want to return to the too-quiet apartment that night, so I camped out on the couch in Dad’s study--my former room--and read your letter. Red ink, hurried script, and a few big dots where you had paused without raising your pen...one of them resembled a heart.

_Edge, love, there will never be another you. I keep returning to that last night in Nassau._

_The girls had been dropped off at the airport, and we spent the afternoon tying up loose ends with Steve in the studio. You were all business, but when I was in the hallway, bending over to drink from the water fountain, your hand brushed against my red spandex-clad hip._

_“Wear this for me tonight.”_

_“Alright.”_

_Feigning overindulgence a few hours later, we left our going-away party early, and I followed you to your room, which was the mirror image of the one I shared with Ali. I had just enough time for this to register when your lips were on mine, reclaiming them and the rest of me easily. I smiled, overjoyed to have you all to myself again, but I was dying of curiosity._

_“How far did you go with her?” I asked._

_“Do you remember what happened between us in Limerick? At the hotel?”_

_“I’ll never forget it.”_

_“That far.”_

_Orgasms separated by a wall. I could live with that. I would have to live with that._

_“I love you, Edge.”_

_“I love you, Bono.”_

_I outlined your lips with a finger. “I missed your mouth.”_

_“Fucking ravenous for you,” you said, biting it._

_I moved to flick off the overhead light switch, but you stopped me. “No,” you said, removing my shirt._

_“Okay.”_

_“On the bed. On your back.”_

_Excited, I did as I was told and gazed up at the halo-like corona of your dark hair, backlit by the ceiling light, as you loomed over me. It was as if you were trying to keep me slightly off balance and show me that you were the opposite of Ali. You would take me places she couldn’t imagine._

_She is a woman, but you are a genius._

_“I took a couple of photos when you were lying like this on the beach the other day.”_

_“Yes.”_

_“But I wanted to do so much more.”_

_“So do it.”_

_“I will. That—” you said, pointing at the light, “is the sun. This bed is the sand. You’re lying on your back, and the sun is slowly but surely burning your dear little belly.” You leaned over and kissed skin that had become maybe just a tiny bit golden if you were being truly honest with yourself, Edge. “You are at your most beautiful. And then I come along with my camera, and because I’m taking pictures of everything, I’m taking pictures of you.”_

_I squinted and shaded my eyes. “And you’re wearing those black shorts that nearly brought me to my knees every time I saw them.”_

_You grinned and took off your shirt and jeans, revealing that exact item. Then you retrieved something from the desk, kissed my raised knee, and we were on the beach again. “Except now I have this.”_

_You were holding a Polaroid camera. “When did you get that?”_

_“A few weeks ago. Shopping in Chicago? You were busy looking at blazers or something.”_

_“You don’t say? And why would you need a Polaroid camera, The Edge?”_

_“So I can take photos of you that I can look at immediately and not have to involve any kind of middleman.”_

_“I see.”_

_Placing the camera on the other pillow, you moved onto the bed, onto me, and tracing my jawline, you whispered, “We’re still out there on the beach.”_

_“We don’t even care.”_

_“No, we don’t.”_

_We made out on the sand for a long time. I wrapped my arms and legs around you, pulling you down and luxuriating in your weight, your maleness. A window was open, and the sounds of waves crashing against the beach, the wind rustling the palm trees, steel drum music, and the occasional muffled voices of tourists passing by made your scene even more realistic._

_I leaned up on my elbows and watched as you knelt between my legs and kissed me through my shorts. Just like the night before, the heat of your mouth made me dizzy with need. Satisfied with the level of arousal you had created, you glanced up with a smile. “Stay just like that.”_

_You were interested in documenting the shorts more than the rest of me, which was fine because it was probably unwise to have my face attached to the images, should they fall into the wrong hands. (Although anyone with a working knowledge of our band and the interpersonal dynamics at play could have easily put two and two together.) With the click of a button, a high-pitched mechanical whir delivered nine square inches of instant gratification to you. Then you suggested that maybe a few fingertips could disappear behind the waistband, and perhaps I should also turn over, and maybe the shorts could be rolled down just a bit, just enough to see._

_As we waited a couple of minutes for the photos to develop, you returned to your original position above me and asked, “How would you like it if I took you right here on the beach?”_

_“I was hoping you’d ask, love.”_

_“Good. Let me get you ready.”_

_You sat on the side of the bed and indicated that I should stretch out over your lap, face down, hips up. Stroking my back, you murmured your approval, and I noticed a hitch in your breathing as you pulled my shorts down again, this time a bit further. You traced the boundary between skin that had seen the sun and skin that had not, and I imagined what I must have looked like to you. The position was vulnerable and undignified, but in a way that produced blushes and lust and squirming and heat rather than shame. Oh, you had me. Oh, I was yours._

_Gently and patiently, you made sure I was ready for you, ready to receive what I needed. And I reveled in being the object of your desire--all I had to do was accept you, to be passive, to be lovingly dominated. This was a change I had been craving after the pressure of learning how to please someone whose body was different from mine, whose pleasure required the mastery of a new playbook that, while fascinating, was unintuitive and occasionally nebulous, and whose rules could change without warning._

_No. I knew what you loved, and that easy familiarity was comforting, even when you entered me with a fire, hard and needy, biting the nape of my neck and repeating my name, and baby, and lover, and yes, and please, and yes, my beloved Edge, so sexy and creative and beautifully strange. You savored my body for as long as you could before you came like a wave crashing onto the shore. Then you rolled me onto my back and worshiped my cock with your mouth and your hands, so eager to have me again right there on the sand, all yours, all mine, always electric, always transcendent, always the two of us, making love under the sun, under the very eyes of God._

_I love you,  
B._

I held the letter against my chest for a long time and thought about the Polaroids, which I kept in a secret compartment in the bag I used the most. The bag I had with me. The bag I opened and unzipped and there you were, red and ready to consume me with a fire. And the new song that just started to take shape on a cheap little keyboard--I heard your voice over the top of it, at first solemn and fragile, then soaring. And I knew.

I can’t let this go.

I can’t let you go.


End file.
